What to Do When People See Leadership in You Before You Do

"Put me on a pedestal, and I'll only disappoint you." — Courtney Barnett

This quote has been rattling around in my head for days. It names something I've felt for awhile now, even before I had the language for it.

I've noticed a pattern in my life: people sometimes see leadership, possibility, or capacity in me before I feel fully aligned with those words myself. When that happens, a familiar tension shows up.

Maybe you know this feeling. Your manager sees you as director material. Your colleagues suggest you lead the project. The promotion conversation happens before you've decided you want it.

The Real Leadership Challenge: When Recognition Comes Before Readiness

Here's what I want you to know about this tension: It's not self-doubt, and it's not false modesty.

It's something subtler. I’m not resisting responsibility. I’m resisting idealization.

What this means for your career is critical. Because I've learned—sometimes the hard way—that pedestals aren't neutral. They create distance. They turn living, responsive humans into symbols. And once someone becomes an idea, the relationship quietly changes.

Think about your workplace. When someone gets promoted, elevated, recognized—watch what happens. Some people start treating them differently. The easy rapport shifts. Questions become more formal. Mistakes feel riskier.

Pedestals are fragile places to stand. One wobble and the whole thing can collapse.

That's why the Courtney Barnett line lands hard. It's not dipping into self-deprecation. What it is, is a boundary, and a refusal to be frozen into someone else's projection.

But Here's the Paradox You Need to Navigate

And still, I also know this to be true: I need people in my life who see things in me, and for me, that I can't always see from inside my own experience.

Both things are true.

Maybe you're navigating this in your career right now. Someone's belief in your capacity feels both encouraging and uncomfortable at the same time.

The distinction that keeps helping me hold this is simple but key: There's a difference between being elevated and having your horizon extended.

This is where so many professionals get stuck. They reject the promotion, turn down the opportunity, or play small—because they don't want the pedestal. But in avoiding elevation, they also reject genuine perspective about their growing capacity.

This is where the idea of "borrowing belief" often gets misunderstood.

Borrowing belief can look like arrogance when it's performative or unearned. When someone adopts confidence as a costume, or speaks from certainty they haven't actually lived into yet, it can feel inflated, loud and off-kilter.

But when that belief comes from real relationship—someone who knows your work, your edges, and your humanity—what shows up is perspective.

How to Accept Recognition Without Accepting the Pedestal

We're all inside our own frame. We see the effort, the doubt, the unfinished edges. We're close enough to the work that scale is hard to judge. Someone standing a few steps back can sometimes see continuity, pattern, and direction that feels invisible from the inside.

The problem isn't being seen. The problem is being placed above relationship, and that's where pedestals do their damage.

Pedestal-people disappear when you wobble. True witnesses stay curious.

Here's how to tell the difference in your workplace:

Pedestal-people need you to stay impressive. They confuse certainty with leadership and confidence with control. When you hesitate, revise, or admit you don't know, their image fractures.

True witnesses are different. They don't rush you into their vision. They don't need you to be polished or finished. They've seen you think, listen, recalibrate, recover. Their belief doesn't collapse when things get ambiguous—because it wasn't built on performance in the first place.

So how do you actually work with this kind of seeing?

The Practice That Helps You Stay Grounded While Growing

This is the kind of seeing I'm learning to let in.

Not "You're exceptional, therefore untouchable." But: "I've watched how you work. I trust where this could grow."

That kind of belief doesn't demand agreement. It doesn't call on me to suddenly see myself the way others do. It just asks that I don't dismiss their perspective as exaggeration.

Sometimes the most grounded move isn't to inflate or deflate the self—but to simply say: I'll keep doing the work. You can hold the longer view for now.

Leadership, as I'm coming to understand it, doesn't require elevation. It requires reachability. It asks you to stay human while holding responsibility. To remain in relationship, not above it.

So yes—I'll step off the pedestal every time. But I'm also learning not to walk alone.

Because being seen clearly isn't the same as being mythologized. And allowing trusted people to extend your sightline doesn't mean surrendering your center.

It just means you don't have to see the whole path by yourself.

How do you handle it when people see leadership capacity in you before you feel ready? Who are the true witnesses in your career who've helped extend your horizon? Let me know in the comments.

I’m Richard Taliaferro. I’m a certified career coach specializing in helping mid-stage professionals gain clarity on their career journey. I’ve written a guide on how to escape the work hamster wheel. Click here to download yours.