The Myth of the Warrior
There was a time when being a warrior was the gold standard of leadership. In fact, there is a big push these days to get back to being a warrior. Show up strong, stayed stoic, don’t give an inch, hold your emotions in check, and you the warrior carries the weight for everyone. You never showed weakness, never asked for help, and never let people see you sweat.
For a while, it worked. At least on the surface.
Teams hit their numbers. Bosses gave praise. People followed orders. But over time, something broke down. And it wasn’t just the people on the team; it was also the leaders who paid the price.
I know this because I was one of them. I built my first companies with grit, drive, and an iron will. The companies did well, but I did not do justice to my team. And I paid for it too, I was all work, no play which led to burnout, strained relationships, and a culture built more on fear than trust.
This is the story of the shift I had to make, and the shift I now help other leaders make every day.
Because the truth is, the world doesn’t need more warriors.
It needs more leaders.
The Warrior Mentality: Why It Worked, and Why It’s Failing Now
We were taught that toughness, control, and stoicism were the marks of strength. That if you pushed harder, talked louder, and showed no emotion, people would respect you more.
In the warrior mindset, power is about control. Respect is earned through dominance. Emotions are a liability. And vulnerability? That’s for the weak.
The problem is: this model doesn’t scale. It burns people out. It creates distance. And it builds compliance, not commitment.
You may get results, but you won’t get innovation, loyalty, or long-term performance.
And while the warrior model still shows up in corporate cultures, younger generations aren’t buying it anymore. They don’t want to survive at work. They want to grow. And they’ll walk away from leaders who can’t or won’t evolve.
This shift isn’t a trend; it’s a generational reset. People aren’t asking for less leadership. They’re asking for better leadership. More human leadership.
Control Doesn’t Create Trust
Let’s get this out in the open: control feels good. It gives you certainty. It makes you feel needed. And in the moment, it feels like leadership. But it’s not. Control gets people to comply. But it doesn’t make them care. It silences creativity, slows down decision-making, and makes your team dependent instead of empowered. And the longer you lead from control, the quieter your team becomes. People won’t challenge your ideas. They won’t offer theirs. They’ll wait to be told.
In that kind of culture, mistakes get hidden. Innovation gets stifled. And problems get worse before they ever get solved. Trust doesn’t grow when you tighten the reins. It grows when you loosen them, intentionally, with structure, and with courage. Trust is earned when you invite people in, not when you shut them out.
Toughness Without Empathy Is Just Distance
You can be strong and still care. You can have high standards and still lead with heart. But the warrior model told us otherwise. It taught us to toughen up. To grind harder. To hide anything that looked like doubt or struggle.
And so, leaders, especially men, got good at performing. They stayed quiet about the hard stuff, avoided emotional conversations, and learned to lead from behind a mask. But here’s the thing: people don’t follow masks. They follow people.
Toughness, when it shuts out empathy, doesn’t inspire. It isolates.
Empathy doesn’t mean coddling. It doesn’t mean lowering expectations. It means understanding the full human experience your people are bringing to work and meeting them there.
The Cost of the Warrior Model
Many leaders don’t even notice the price they’re paying until it’s too late. At first, it’s pride, “Look at all I can carry”
But slowly, it turns into fatigue. Not the kind of tired that a weekend fixes, but the kind that makes you question whether any of it is worth it.
It shows up in disengagement, turnover, and quiet meetings where nobody speaks up. It shows up in good people leaving, not because they didn’t believe in the mission, but because they stopped believing their voice mattered.
And it shows up in leaders who are burned out, isolated, and unsure how to fix a culture they never meant to break.
When everything rides on one person, you may feel in control. But you’re also alone. And the team you’re building isn’t growing, they’re waiting.
Waiting for your permission. Your input. Your command.
That’s not leadership. That’s a bottleneck.
Leading by Principle: What Comes Next
There is a better way. But it doesn’t come from pushing harder. It comes from redefining what strength looks like.
It comes from Principled Leadership, a model grounded in humility, empathy, and
vulnerability.
These are not soft skills. They’re not optional. They’re strategic.
They’re what rebuild trust, drive engagement, and create cultures where people don’t justsurvive, they thrive.
Let’s break them down.
Humility: The Antidote to Control
Humility isn’t about being passive. It’s about being open. It means you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room. You don’t have to have all the answers. You just have to be curious enough to ask the right questions. Humility makes space for others. It builds confidence in your team. And it creates a culture where people speak up, they speak up because they know their ideas will be heard, not shot down.
Humility shows up when you say things like:
- “What am I missing?”
- “What do you think?”
- “How can we do this better?”
It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of strength in knowing leadership isn’t about proving yourself. It’s about improving together.
Humility in Action
One of my clients, a founder in the tech space, felt like he had to approve every decision himself. He called it “being hands-on,” but really, it was high control. While he said he trusted his team, his need for control showed that he really didn’t. This led to people who didn’t trust themselves either.
We made one small shift: before giving his opinion, he had to ask the room, “What do you think is the best move?”
At first, it was uncomfortable. But over time, the culture changed. People spoke up. Ideas got better. And the founder realized that humility didn’t weaken his leadership. It amplified it.
Empathy: The Antidote to Cold Toughness
Empathy doesn’t mean lowering the bar. It means understanding what people are carrying while they’re trying to reach it.
It means looking beyond behavior and asking what’s really going on. When someone misses a deadline, empathy wonders if they’re overwhelmed, not just lazy. When a top performer checks out, empathy gets curious about trust, not just results.
Empathy makes room for real conversations. And it creates loyalty. The kind of loyalty that’s earned, not demanded.
Empathy in Action
I worked with a VP who led with structure but lacked connection. Her team followed her, but they didn’t lean in. When she did ask for feedback all she got was silence. This may have felt like agreement, but that is not what it was.
We added one small practice: start every one-on-one. It was a personal check-in.
“How are you doing, not just with work, but with life?”
This too felt awkward at first. The responses were guarded, but soon the team started to open up. They felt seen. They felt heard, they felt valued. It didn’t take a lot of time, but this one change made a difference. Performance didn’t drop; it improved. Because people who feel cared for tend to care more deeply.
Vulnerability: The Antidote to Isolation
Here’s what most leaders get wrong: vulnerability isn’t about oversharing. It’s about going first.
It’s saying, “Here’s where I’m unsure,” or “Here’s a mistake I made.” Or something as simple as “I could use a little help.” It’s choosing to be real in a world where most people are still pretending.
And when you go first, something powerful happens people follow. Not because they’re forced to, but because they trust you.
Vulnerability in Action
A CEO I worked with once shared a story at a leadership retreat, something he’d never told his team. It was about a failure early in his career, and how he nearly walked away from it all.
He wasn’t emotional. He wasn’t dramatic. He was just honest.
And that honesty cracked something open. The team leaned in. They connected on a different level. And the culture shifted, because the leader went first.
What Leadership Looks Like Now
We are at a turning point. The next generation is not tolerating outdated leadership models. They’re not sticking around for fear-based cultures or micromanagement.
Today’s best leaders are:
- Trusted, not feared
- Respected, not obeyed
- Human, not robotic
They lead with presence, not performance. They build relationships, not hierarchies. And they earn commitment, not just compliance.
Because leadership today isn’t about barking orders. It’s about building something people want to be part of.
Leadership Is a Relationship
At its core, leadership is a relationship. It’s not a title or a rank. It’s how people experience you, day in and day out.
It’s how you respond when someone disagrees.
It’s how you show up when pressure is high.
It’s how people feel after interacting with you.
That’s what people remember. That’s what creates legacy. And that’s what shapes culture, much more than any mission statement ever will.
The Shift Starts with You
If you’ve read this far, chances are you already feel it: something needs to change. And maybe it’s not just your team. Maybe it’s you.
That’s not failure. That’s awareness.
The shift from warrior to leader doesn’t mean giving up strength. It means redefining it.
- Real strength listens.
- Real strength invites others in.
- Real strength says, “Let’s build something that lasts.”
You don’t need to apply more pressure. You need more principle.
And that shift? It starts with how you lead today.
Start small. Ask the harder question. Let someone else take the lead in a meeting. Share one story that shows your team you’re human.
Then do it again tomorrow.
And the next day.
Because leadership isn’t forged in one big moment.
It’s forged in the reps.
