The Same Self in Every Room
Remembering who we are beneath what we carry
In leadership, it becomes possible to lose contact with ourselves.
Not through ego or ambition, but through devotion to the work.
When responsibilities expand and expectations accumulate, the doing can begin to outpace the being. We stay active, responsible, productive, yet slowly become less in touch with our own center. The work grows louder, and inner awareness grows quieter.
And over time, we feel slightly less ourselves in each setting we walk into.
Responding to what is asked of us.
Boards look for steadiness and direction.
Staff look for clarity and support.
Donors look for vision and confidence.
Each of these expectations is real and often necessary. But with every room we enter, identity can subtly shift toward function. We begin responding as the role requires, and somewhere in that process, the self beneath the role becomes harder to access. A kind of inner blurring begins.
Identity anchored in God
James 1:8 describes a double-minded person as unsettled in all their ways.
That language names the exhaustion of internal division. When we shift ourselves to fit each context, the center of who we are becomes less available to us. It does not happen all at once. It builds quietly over time. And slowly, without noticing, we move through the day slightly unmoored.
Why this matters for leaders
Psychologists call this identity coherence, the ability to remain one person across different settings.
When coherence is strong, we adapt externally while staying rooted internally. But when outward demands keep multiplying, our attention drifts away from inner grounding. This is not failure. It is the cost of sustained outward orientation.
A personal remembering
There were periods when the day would carry me from one room to another, each with its own tone, energy, and expectation. Each room required a different expression of presence: strategic clarity here, relational steadiness there, visionary energy somewhere else. By the end of those days, I would often feel slightly disoriented, as if pieces of me had been left behind in each room. Not dishonest. Not performative. Just costly.
I had not lost myself, but I had become distant from myself.
Over time, I began to sense that when I was unsettled inside, something in the room felt unsettled too. People might not have known why, but they could feel the subtle distance. And when I was more rooted, more myself, others relaxed. The room became calmer, more human, more honest.
It surprised me how much presence mattered.
Not authority.
Not certainty.
Not charisma.
Just presence.
Not many selves. Just one.
The same self in every room.
I did not need to hold every role perfectly.
I just needed to remain myself inside them.
Returning to who we are
The work of leadership will always ask much of us. There will always be rooms to enter, responsibilities to hold, and expectations to meet. But beneath all of that, there remains a steady self that God is forming in us, one that does not need to shift or multiply.
And when we lead from that grounded place, that real place, we no longer feel the need to adjust, or reshape, or become someone else. We can simply be who we are.
Settled.