How Can We Tell the Difference Between Real Leadership and Leadership Theater?

This is Johanna Rothman’s August 2025 Create an Adaptable Life Newsletter. The unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email.

Leaders often struggle with their actions. How hands-off should they be? When should they walk around and listen? Can they trust people to do their jobs? Can they support the people they lead and serve, or do they need to do some of the work?

Sometimes, real leadership looks like inflicting help on others. More often, leaders need to ask for help.

That’s why real leaders create their toolboxes, not recipes.

Create Your Toolbox, Not a Recipe

There is no recipe for real, effective leadership. Instead, leaders need a wide variety of tools in their leadership toolbox. Then, they need to use their judgment to decide which tool to use and when. (For managers, I offer guidelines in How to Choose Your Management Role for Most Effective and Efficient Work.)

That judgment is opaque to other people. When we watch real leaders, we don’t often see them sweat or the internal struggles that led to that decision. But we can see the results. The leader uses different tools based on the situation, and those tools can lead to different outcomes.

In contrast, leadership theater is all too easy to see. The leader uses charisma and a limited toolbox to manage all problems. Those responses can fool some of the people some of the time. However, the longer the time horizon, the more people realize this is leadership theater.

We might disagree with a real leader’s policies and decisions. But their actions lead to an assessment of those results and the ability to change the leader’s mind. That’s the essence of real leadership: the ability to see the results and learn from them.

Leadership theater is like cotton candy. It tastes great—but leaves you empty once it’s done. How do you differentiate between real leadership and leadership theater?

Differentiate Between Real Leadership and Leadership Theater

Real leadership doesn’t always look heroic or calm. Sometimes, the leader acts decisively to manage an emergency. Other times, the leader needs time to decide. But when the leader explains their decisions, we can appreciate the thinking behind those decisions. It tends to manage risks and adapt to the current situation.

While I wish all real leaders could acquire the information they need early, they can’t always do so. But real leaders recognize reality. That allows them to use their resilience and adapt to new information, and probably, make new decisions.

In contrast, leadership theater often looks decisive every single time. However, over time, this kind of leadership is ineffective because leaders need to learn from their decisions. Leadership theater does not solve the problems—and often creates others. Instead of seeing and promoting reality, people who use leadership theater use their charisma to cheerlead, drawing people away from solving the real problems.

Real leaders build trust through consistent actions, which include learning from their past decisions.

Real Leaders Use Consistency to Build Trust and Relationships

I wish I could tell you real leaders are perfect. They are not!

However, real leaders use consistent actions to build relationships and trust before those leaders need them. Real leaders assess their decisions and actions to learn from them and improve for the next time.

At work, leaders use one-on-ones to build trust and relationships with their staff and across the organization before they need those relationships. (See the Modern Management Made Easy books.)

In our various communities, leaders show up for other people. That leads others to show up for them. (While help does not need to be reciprocal, the more people appreciate your leadership, the more likely they are to reciprocate.)

All of this consistency builds the real leader’s presence and charisma. That charisma is no longer an act—it’s real. That’s because the people who trust you grant you that presence and charisma. Sure, part of presence is self-esteem. But no one can tell other people they are charismatic. That’s nonsense. Instead, the various audiences grant that charisma to the leader.

Real leaders have an extensive toolbox that allows them to decide and then act. And then, change their minds in the face of new information.

Don’t let some fake leader’s charisma fool you. If they have just one way of reacting, they’re not real leaders. That’s all leadership theater, which damages everyone.

Announcements…

I am ready to start the index for Effective Public Speaking: How to Use Content Marketing With Stories to Show Your Value. (Yes, at some point, I will write about starting energy vs. finishing energy.) I’m planning a Kickstarter to publish the paper books. When I have the link for that Kickstarter, I’ll let you know.

If you are part of the agile community, consider checking out The Agile Network. Also, don’t miss out on discounted membership options. Use Discount Code: ROTHMANPMC33 to get 33% OFF all memberships.

Create Your Toolbox, Not a Recipe

Differentiate Between Real Leadership and Leadership Theater

Real Leaders Use Consistency to Build Trust and Relationships

Announcements…

Read More of Create an Adaptable Life

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