Why “just be yourself” is bad advice for leaders in Asia

A founder in his mid-fifties has just heard from his COO that he is “too intense” in meetings. He looks up, half smiling, half defeated.

“They keep telling me to just be myself. But I am being myself. That’s the problem.”

I have heard a version of that sentence from leaders in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Beijing and Shanghai. The words change. The shape does not.

A piece of advice that doesn’t travel well

“Be authentic” grew up in a culture where the self is individual: something you discover, express and defend. Be yourself makes sense when the self is one thing.

In much of Asia, the self is relational. A founder is one person with his mother, another with his board, another with his juniors. That is what good judgement here has always asked for. In Chinese there is a word for it: 分寸, the sense of the right measure for the right moment.

So when a leader in Asia is told to “just be yourself” in the boardroom, what he often hears is: bring your default. Your unfiltered reaction. Your inherited voice. And that default is frequently the version of him that is not working.

Your default self is mostly inherited

Seventeen years at Mercedes-Benz in Beijing, then the Group CEO seat at a listed Malaysian manufacturer, taught me this, and my advisory work since has confirmed it: much of what we call “myself” was handed to us.

It was shaped by our parents’ expectations, by the way our first boss spoke to people, by fears we absorbed before we had words for them. When you bring that self without understanding it, you do not become more authentic. You become more predictable. More reactive.

The founder above had grown up with a father who built a business on sheer will and praised toughness the way other fathers praise good grades. His pattern was a fear of being seen as soft. His COO experienced it as intensity. He experienced it as being himself. Both were true, and neither helped.

What the Enneagram shows instead

The Enneagram shows you why you became this self. Used well, it is a mirror that reveals four things:

• the pattern that has been running your leadership,
• the fear underneath the pattern,
• the strength the pattern protects, and what it costs,
• the leader who shows up when you no longer need the pattern.

Three patterns we see often in Asian boardrooms

The founder who cannot let go. He built the business through drive. The company has now outgrown his ability to manage every detail. Underneath the control is a fear of becoming invisible if he steps back. Once named, succession becomes possible.

The high-performing number two. A brilliant operator, trusted by everyone, quietly burning out. Underneath is a belief that her worth comes from being needed. The work is choosing a new basis for her worth.

The boardroom diplomat. Smooths every meeting and is praised as “good with people.” The cost: decisions delayed, hard truths softened until they are useless. Underneath is a fear of being disliked. The work is finding a self that can hold warmth and edge together.

In each case, the answer was never be yourself. It was: first, see yourself. Then choose.

Seeing your own pattern is the first step. The free Enneagram test at businessenneagramasia.com takes 5–8 minutes.

Examples in this article are illustrative composites from our advisory practice. Names and identifying details are changed.