Ever wondered which mythical creature captures your leadership style?
Yes, this might sound like nonsense…but is it?
If you’re mid-eyeroll already, I get it.
But if you’re sceptical about spiritualism or a proponent of personality tests, don’t stop reading just yet. This is really an invitation to explore fluid identity, and what that means for professional life, especially as a leader. I see the irony in trying to pin down what it means to be flexible…but let’s give it a go.
The Significator card: who are we?
We love a good label. Labels help us explore who we are, giving us an excuse to introspect at a snapshot in time. But when we hold them too tightly, labels start to limit us. They might tell us where we are now, but let’s not allow them to tell us where to end up.
There are substantial benefits to us – and to the people we lead – of loosening our very human grip on fixed identity. First, let’s talk labels, then astrology and relational intelligence, but after that I’ll give you a handy summary of the benefits, I promise.
Labels soothe us in the face of existential uncertainty
The Hermit card: contemplation, inner guidance, search for truth
Have you ever taken any of those personality-type-style quizzes? You know the ones: from corporate psychometric tests like the MBTI, Enneagrams, CliftonStrengths, and the Big Five, through to Buzzfeed’s “What colour best describes you?”. And surely we’ve all done “Which Spice Girl are you?”
These are decent lenses for introspection, as well as harmless fun, but they also scratch an itch we’re sometimes not aware we have:
- Relief: neat boxes + a one-day leadership course + a laminated personality badge = instant self-awareness, phew
- Hope: maybe there’s a hidden truth if we take enough tests
- Connection with others: we hope that labels will tell us how
- Performative legitimacy: diagrams and acronyms feel scientific and official (okay, maybe less so for Spice Girls)
The comfort comes first, but the insight is optional.
It’s not a flaw to want to belong to something, but belonging doesn’t mean we should adopt all the branding. Saying we’re like this or like that is the language of fixed ideas rather than growth. Say “I’m just not a people person” often enough, and we’ll make it true.
Corporate astrology is real, it just wears good suits and has a CliftonStrengths subscription
The Wheel of Fortune card: destiny, inevitable fate
I’ve taken all the usual personality and professional tests. A friend brings tarot cards to my house sometimes. I once had an angel card reading at a rave. I always glance through the horoscopes at the back of Heat. These things have given me plenty of insight, even if more zig-a-zig-ah than tall dark strangers and Mercury in retrograde.
All of these, as well as the well-recognised tests I listed above, are interpretive tools. They’re not prognoses, but somehow we can all too easily forget this.
The problem isn’t that personality tests are made up: it’s that we forget we’re the ones who made them up.
‘Finding out’ we’re apparently this way or that way according to psychometric testing can make people change jobs and leave relationships. The Big Five is scientifically backed for its ability to predict future states, such as job performance, marital satisfaction, and even health outcomes. Being scientifically backed doesn’t make the Big Five any more useful to me than if it weren’t, because I believe that when we start interpreting test results as destiny we stop being open to change.
The Hierophant card: tradition, conformity
More seriously, most corporate psychometric frameworks are built around culturally specific assumptions, which are often Western, white-collar and skewed towards traits traditionally rewarded in cultures dominated by men.
Traits like “assertiveness”, “proactivity” and “decisiveness” are mistaken for markers of leadership potential. Other equally valuable styles, such as “collaboration” or “patience”, risk being undervalued. People who score lower in dominance-aligned traits may be told they have “areas for development”, whereas in fact they simply operate differently.
Furthermore, how we act in situations depends enormously on role, power dynamics, safety and inclusion, meaning how we behave moment to moment can be miscategorised as personality traits. A woman in a man-heavy team might feel more cautious or less assertive, but not because she’s “naturally” introverted. Similarly, neurodivergent people can be flagged as “poor communicators” in teams that prize extraversion and adherence to social conventions.
It feels even worse when these tools are used in a hiring context. Test results plaster over the fact that building a culture that values diversity is hard. This isn’t introspection, it’s institutionalised fortune-telling.
But back to the useful version of fortune-telling.
The Magician card: manifestation, creation, potential
The great thing about tarot cards is that they ask us questions instead of offering verdicts. Tarot asks, “How does this card resonate with you right now?” instead of stating, “This is what you are.” The mysticism of tarot then – ironically to those of us who believe we’re scientists – is more honest than the tea-leaves-in-a-business-suit version offered by ostensibly objective tests. At least tarot has the decency to admit it’s interpretive.
Drawing The Tower doesn’t mean I should set my house on fire, and no one thinks it does. Yet we still see “#INTJ” all over LinkedIn humility theatre like it’s a clinical diagnosis. Corporate psychometric testing pretends to be science instead of spectacularly non-self-aware mythology.
These frameworks can be genuinely helpful for working out who we are – and, crucially, who we are in relation to other people. We should be open to the results we get from these quizzes changing over time, and in fact we should welcome that.
Because if you’re going to change your life based on a quiz, you may as well scatter some runes, tip your hat to the void, and whisper your deepest desires to a passing crow. Ritual is ritual whether dressed in PowerPoint or feathers, because it can be genuinely introspective…or not.
The sting of mislabelling
The Judgement card: reckoning, reflection, awakening
Readings can also be misreadings. Labels are sticky. Do you give people room to grow and surprise you, or instead expect them to behave ‘on-type’? People aren’t characters in our inner sitcom.
I remember my recent fury at being (in my view) mislabelled in a painfully annoying way. After a one-to-one I’d just had with a newish hire, their manager kindly suggested, “[person] looked a bit frazzled after that. I know you have a – you know – big personality, but have you considered reining it in a bit? You were probably just moving so fast they lost track.”
Sure, feedback is just feedback. But the mislabelling (that winding people up rather than calming them down is an unchangeable personality trait of mine) offended and irritated me. Yes, unchecked I can talk a lot, but I’m conscious of that, and as a result, I put serious effort into holding the right energy when it counts. In fact, the person had been frazzled from the start, and had actually calmed down during our chat – but the way their manager labelled me had prevented them from seeing that.
I hate how easy it was for someone’s casual description of me to puncture the version of myself I’ve worked hard to become, even if I’m a perpetual work in progress. I may be three raccoons in a trench coat, but it’s my trench coat.
Being ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ minute by minute doesn’t define me as a person.
Which brings me to something useful about those personality tests: they remind us that other ways of being exist.
Knowing others come out differently helps us relate to temporary labels
The Temperance card: balance, patience, humility
I’m sure you do the same thing: once I get my test “result”, I always read through some of the other outcomes I could’ve had.
There’s a key difference between reading these and reading, say, those horoscopes in Heat. With the tests, I feel those little zings of, “Yes, that’s me! I feel so seen!”
Unlike horoscopes, though, when reading other potential outcomes – especially the ones relating to the opposite of whatever traits I apparently have – I think, “Well no, that’s definitely not me. Is that actually anyone? Does anyone really enjoy a neat and tidy workspace / thinking before they speak?” Turns out millions. Ah.
Then I get over myself and remember that other people really do value and pursue different things to me, and how great that is. When I remember someone else might be proud of the traits I find annoying, I’m reminded that my preferences are not principles.
And I also think about what my results would have been ten and twenty years ago, and enjoy seeing the evolution. When I re-did the Big Five recently, I felt a weird flicker of resistance at seeing my still-low Neuroticism score come out slightly higher than I’d remembered.
After that initial flicker, though, I have no feelings about this at all. See, what neuroticism?
Labels tell us to expect how people will let us down, and how we’ll let other people down
The Emperor card: authority, structure, control
Much more importantly than neuroticism about neuroticism, understanding our current tendencies helps us stop annoying, disenfranchising and overlooking other people. This is true whether we’re an individual contributor, a manager, or a leader.
Do we use labels to understand ourselves, or to excuse ourselves? The “ENTP” MBTI type is apparently energetic, quick, cavalier, and happily argumentative, and can also be flighty, insensitive and fickle. But saying, “I’m an ENTP,” is only interesting if it helps us notice how others might experience us. It’s not a universal permission slip for steamrolling quieter colleagues. We can’t connect with people by reading our own name badge.
I’m ashamed to share this, but I remember one particular period when I bulldozed colleagues for the sake of being “a pacesetter”, thinking I was setting the star for where we needed to get to after a turbulent time. I confused pace with clarity and lost people by assuming they were with me. I was proud and scared and trying and wrong and also maybe a little conceited and certainly more than a little lost.
What I actually did was panic people about standards, wear them out with a lack of support, and ruin morale, while leaving myself isolated and on the hook for everything. Someone eventually came to me to say, “There…seems to be a lot of new stress in the team.” The look on her face made me feel awful. I did my best to repair the mess and pain I had caused, but I am sad for the lost opportunity to have done better.
Why did I cling to this ineffective leadership style for so long? Was it harder for me to flex my sense of self when I had been labelled “the leader”? I don’t remember, truly, but my understanding of “a leader” was clearly immature, and there was probably some cargo-culting. I do remember being very, very tired, likely testament to the effort of trying not to be found out.
These days, my favourite leadership style is resisting the idea of having one. Is this… …jazz?
Learn to get the best from others: don’t expect them to accommodate
Strength card: self-control, overcoming challenges, compassion
Here’s what this looks like in practice, learned the hard way:
- Vagueness ≠ vision
I’m not at my best when I’m supposed to work towards clear and well-defined objectives. I’m remarkably poor with detail. I live in a state of happy chaos, joyfully allergic to prescriptiveness. I’m at my most creative and strategic when things are fuzziest. Does this mean I should de-focus all my meetings, refuse to make any plans/lists, then force my teams onwards before they’ve figured out the details, expecting they’ll enjoy the same level of uncertainty that I do?
No. It means I am likely to annoy, frustrate and de-motivate colleagues with vagueness, lack of clarity and lack of commitment, and by pushing on before they’re satisfied. More importantly, I’ll deny them the chance to catch crucial things I’ve undoubtedly missed.
- Verbal hand-waving is tiring
I have a tendency to let situations, conversations and sentences freely wander across borders, changing my mind without care. I struggle to stick to one topic. Should I therefore force my conversation partners to flit gaily in the breeze with me?
No no no, I should put some serious effort into not letting my musings run into each other too much, signposting which part is actually the question, then stopping talking to allow everyone room to breathe.
Preferences are not constraints. We need to know them so we can stretch around them, not retreat behind them.
Sidebar: Love “languages” mean exactly that: expression and comprehension, not compliance
The Devil card: temptation, control, playfulness
While we’re on the subject of preference masquerading as principle, please indulge me in a quick standalone rant.
I’ve always had a bugbear about the concept of ‘love languages’. The whole idea as usually stated really doesn’t work for me. For example, saying, “My love language is being given gifts,” doesn’t mean we can then inform people they need to give us gifts to prove they love us. To me, knowing this tells us to prepare ourselves for the fact that gifts don’t await us around every corner, because they don’t, and if we mind this absence every time we will end up feeling sad and unappreciated.
A preference isn’t a summons. No one has to comply.
Labels can get in the way of authentic connection
The Lovers card reversed: misalignment with self and others
As I’ve said, knowing how our current traits affect our relationships means we can start to shift them, gently and deliberately, until those relationships become better. We give ourselves the chance to nurture and strengthen those connections instead of eroding them.
But giving up just before the good bit – actually interrogating who we are beyond a neat label – prevents us from connecting authentically with other people, because we’ve stopped asking the questions that help us get there. It’s easier to say, “I’m a Visionary Leader,” than to say, “I don’t know what to do but I’m trying to get it right.”
Real rapport means taking risks and telling the truth. We can’t offer others the required vulnerability if we’re unable to admit to ourselves that we might not be perfect.
Fluidity, a lighter grip on self, and freedom
The Star card: hope, faith, rejuvenation
In a world where consistency gets rewarded and unpredictability can be punished, letting go of fixed identity is a tough sell. Let’s be brutally honest. It’s incredibly hard to loosen our grip on an identity we’ve spent years curating. But it’s worth it.
So what’s the payoff?
Here are the practical benefits to leaders of having a fluid leadership identity:
- Greater self-awareness and more adaptability
- We notice how our behaviour lands in context.
- We’re free to respond to context rather than clinging to a meticulously choreographed script.“I’m just direct” -> “I’m actually abrasive and people shut down.”
- “Okay, this. So now what?“
- More creative and courageous decision-making in the face of complexity
- Doing things that aren’t ‘like us’ opens new doors – and we’re still open and unruffled when the path isn’t obvious.
- Letting go of ‘what’s typical for me’ silences impostor syndrome.
- “Someone ‘like me’ would do X, not Y” -> “What about A, B or even C?”
- More inclusive leadership
- We stop treating our own style as default or optimal, so we stop treating everyone as if they’re a version of us.
- Other ways of being effective are noticed and valued – including quietness, or humour we don’t share.
- Expanded strengths and less self-sabotage
- Not chasing consistency makes it easier to try new things – and uncover new strengths.
- Fixed labels reinforce themselves (“I’m not a people person”) but fluidity lets us grow instead of repeating old, unhelpful patterns.
- Less ego friction and more energy
- Feedback stings less when identity isn’t at stake.
- We take off the exhausting “what leadership looks like” costume.
- We have more energy to focus on the work, not how we’re perceived.
And, more importantly, the benefits to teams of fluid leadership identity:
- Greater psychological safety
- People feel permission to be a work in progress as modelled by you.
- Team culture shifts away from image towards learning and adaptability.
- Failure is less threatening
- When leaders value responsiveness over always being right, mistakes become learning moments rather than identity threats.
- “Making wise decisions is more important than knowing the answer”
- There’s more room for difference
- Resisting self-categorisation means we’re less likely to categorise others.
- There’s room for different expressions and unexpected strengths.
- Bias drops when we stop holding others to our own model of what, for example, “a good communicator” is.
- The team gets what it actually needs
- Whatever is most useful rather than scripted, rigid consistency.
- Leadership feels accessible
- A fluid leader makes leadership feel less elite and more doable.
- We’ve been shown another way.
A leader who can hold a fluid idea of their own identity makes better decisions, feels greater satisfaction, builds stronger teams, increases inclusivity, and adapts with grace; and invites others to do the same.
Which of these benefits will you actually feel first? No idea. But the moment someone stops expecting you to be predictable, you’ll know.
You don’t have to play the same card twice
The Death card: movement, beginnings, metamorphosis
Here’s the thing about jazz: you know the tune, and you understand the structure, but you’re free to improvise. You respond to others, adapt, and create something new every time you make music.
Fluidity in identity means knowing your core themes but being able to read the room.
So whether today you’re an ENTP-a, a Visionary Leader, an Activator, a type 7 wing 8, a Socialiser, or a Scorpio with an unusual fondness for laminating things (hi), just remember: these are descriptions, not prescriptions.
Here’s the punchline: what you’ll come up as tomorrow is up to you. And if you don’t like it, shuffle the deck again.
Oh, and by the way – Mel B.
