What happens when the strengths that made you successful become the very things holding you back?

You’ve worked hard, built your career, and earned greater responsibility. But now something isn’t working. Your team isn’t responding the way you’d hoped. Your leadership style feels less effective. Or perhaps you’ve hit a career plateau despite doing everything that made you successful in the past.

The problem may not be your skills or experience. It may be that the leadership habits and behaviors that got you here are no longer what you need to move forward.

In this episode of Career Sessions, host J.R. Lowry talks with Andrea Petrone, executive coach, leadership advisor, and author of Reinvention at the Top: The Playbook for CEOs to Lead Under Pressure, about why successful professionals get stuck—and how to reinvent yourself as a leader without losing your authenticity.

Drawing on his own experience as a young CEO and his work coaching senior executives, Andrea explains how our greatest strengths can become liabilities, why we revert to ineffective leadership behaviors under pressure, and how to recognize when it’s time to change.

Andrea’s lessons are relevant well beyond the C-suite. You’ll learn:

Why success can become a trap: How the strengths and leadership habits that helped you advance can eventually limit your effectiveness.

• How to recognize when your leadership style isn’t working: The subtle warning signs that your team may be disengaging, withholding feedback, or losing confidence.
• Why your past influences how you lead: How childhood experiences, former bosses, and early career lessons shape your leadership instincts—especially under pressure.
• How to lead with greater authenticity: Why trying to project confidence and authority can undermine your effectiveness, and how quiet leadership can build trust and influence.
• How to reinvent yourself without putting your career on hold: Practical steps to question old assumptions, change ingrained behaviors, and develop a leadership approach that fits your current responsibilities.

Whether you’re a new manager, an experienced executive, or a professional preparing for your next career move, this conversation offers a practical approach to leadership development, career growth, self-awareness, and personal reinvention.Because sometimes the biggest obstacle to becoming a better leader isn’t what you don’t know. It’s what you need to unlearn.

About the guest: Andrea Petrone is an executive coach, leadership advisor, and author of Reinvention at the Top. He works with CEOs and senior leaders to help them navigate change, lead under pressure, and develop more authentic and effective leadership approaches.

Learn more about Andrea’s work and access his leadership assessment at reinventionatthetop.com.

And be sure to check out my forthcoming book, written with Daniela De Luca, Be the Boss You Wish You’d Had: A Preople-First Guide to Management, available for pre-order wherever you buy your books. For more info, visit, https://pathwise.io/be-the-boss/

Check out the full series of “Career Sessions, Career Lessons” podcasts here or visit pathwise.io/podcast/. A full written transcript of this episode is also available at https://pathwise.io/podcasts/andrea-petrone/.

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When Your Strengths Become Weaknesses: How To Reinvent Yourself As A Leader with Andrea Petrone

Featuring Andrea Petrone

How Strengths Can Become A Ceiling For Senior Leaders

There’s a familiar saying in the business world that what got you here won’t get you there. What if the level of change goes deeper than just learning a few new skills? What if the very qualities that have made you successful, things like your drive, your confidence, and your determination, start to become things that hold you back? What if somewhere along the way you become so focused on being the leader that you think you’re supposed to be that you lose touch with the person that you actually are?

My guest is Andrea Petrone, an executive coach, leadership advisor, and author of Reinvention at the Top, the playbook for CEOs to lead under pressure. Drawing on his own career setbacks and his work with hundreds of senior leaders, Andrea argues that leadership problems often aren’t about a lack of competence. They’re about the gap between who we are, what we stand for, and how we show up under pressure.

We are going to explore how success can become a trap, how childhood experiences can shape our leadership instincts, why authenticity becomes harder the further we advance, and how to reinvent ourselves when the old playbook stops working. Now, while Andrea writes for CEOs, these lessons matter to anyone who is stepping into a bigger role or even into the next chapter of their careers more generally, because sometimes what got you here won’t get you there. Let’s get into the discussion with Andrea.

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Thanks so much for joining me and looking forward to having you on the show.

Thank you so much, J.R., for inviting me to your show. Looking forward to this conversation.

Let’s get into it. You’ve got a new book out in which you argue that the strengths that have made us successful can eventually hold us back. How does that happen?

The through line, or the story of this book, is what I noticed and observed, J.R., over many years. First of all, from myself, because I was a CEO at 35 years old. I went through this. In a number of conversations I had on my show, The World Class Leader Show, where I interview CEOs, but equally in my coaching conversations with CEOs. What I started to realize very quickly is that when you get to the top, and by the way, you do not need to be SEO to experience that. It could be at the top table or could be in any table where you have an important role or responsibility.

What I realized is that what got you there is valid because you deserve it. You’re good at what you do, meaning your strengths relate to your question. A strength gets really rewarded so often it hardens into your identity, who you really are, and it stops being a choice and starts running you. You’re starting to become like a victim of your own strengths because those strengths work so well for you and with you. You start considering who I am. These are the strengths that got me so far. Why should I change it? Why should I reconsider that? Something happens. The role changes.

When I say role changes, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a kind of new assignment or new appointment. When I say role changes, it could actually happen even when you are in the same title. Something shifts around you. The context, the people, the ownership, the team that you are working with, the model, the business, the acquisition, merger, whatever happens. As we know now, there actually is quite a frequent number of changes that happen. What one needs speed and decisiveness now may be patience and letting others decide. The reflex, if you like, stays the same.

What I think is interesting to consider is that sex removes the feedback they’re used to, correcting you somehow. People tell you maybe less, the truth, the higher you go, so you do not feel that drift. Your greatest strengths, overused and unexamined, become your ceiling. That’s what I’ve seen multiple times. It’s what I call your past identity, your past playbook. In this book, I invite you to consider that entity, that strength, at some point, might not be anymore in service of what you’re dealing with.

You had your own experience with this, that you talk about a quick rise and then some setbacks. Talk about what that felt like for you when you had that realization that what was working for you in the past wasn’t necessarily working for you in your present at that point.

Reinvention At The Top: When a strength gets rewarded so often, it hardens into your identity, who you really are, and it stops being a choice and starts running you.

I’m probably the best example. It’s so funny because I started to write this book, thinking about this book way, way later in my journey. When I then reconnected all the dots, I said, “That actually happened to me first.” It’s interesting in terms of retrospective. I was probably one of those guys who had the opportunity to have an international career. As we know, having an international career is often, if you play well, your career is always a good trampoline.

It’s a great opportunity to accelerate your development, your journey, and your growth. That happened to me. I got to the point where, in a matter of a few years, I had growing responsibility almost every single year. We were very fast. I got to a moment where I got to the top of the table. At that time, the table was a joint venture, so I was not leading McDonald’s, but it was still a very important role for me as a newcomer at the top. What I realized is that I learned something from the past, from what works, what doesn’t, from mentors, from previous bosses, from clients.

You started to experience what leadership is supposed to be through the lens of your experience. Equally through the lens of your education, through the lens of your values, through the lens of the books that you read. It’s all part of the mix. Now, I came into that role with a very clear idea of what I was going to be in that role. I need to control what’s happening. I need to direct people. I need to give instructions. I need to jump on things.

Now, there are still many leaders. They’re actually leading that way. It’s nothing right or wrong. What I experienced is that, in that role, the company needed somebody else, needed an orchestrator, needed a facilitator. I needed to come with humility. I needed to come with more of myself rather than using the title, using a mask to project a level of confidence or authority that was not needed. In the end, eventually, actually, it hurt me.

Recognizing When The Old Playbook Fails And Seeking Guidance

How did you come to that realization? Did you come to it on your own, or did you come to it with help from others?

No, that’s why I think this book could be very relevant, J.R., because it’s not something that happened that I realized was happening to me. I couldn’t name it. I knew something was off. The only way for me to fix it was, “Andrea, go back to the playbook. The playbook works and always works in a certain way. Double down, push harder, do better, just do better.” That was not the answer. The answer was different.

The only answer, as for many of us who have maybe experienced coaching in our experience, in our journey, I decided for the first time to hire a coach. For me, it was, at that moment a setback. Why do I need a coach? I’ve been successful so far. Why is that? Why are you thinking about having a coach? That was, for many, an experience because actually I had a career coach, as I thought that was just a strategic conversation to have for my career. It ended up to be a completely different journey because she helped me to look at the mirror and that was the moment of breakthrough.

I said, “I do not think I’m the person who I really want to be.” From that realization, I started to ask a lot of questions, who do I want to be? What kind of a new identity do I want to create for myself? What is needed inside of what I’m committed to right now? That shifted everything, as you might imagine. I recreated my own story. I recreated my own narrative. Most of all, I recreated myself. Is a reinvention, which is also the title of the book, Reinvention at the Top. That, if you like, is the second part of my career that really started.

You’ve talked about a couple of different things. The fact that the situation that you were in did not need the kind of CEO that you were at that point. You needed more of a facilitator and an orchestrator. You’ve also talked about the fact that you came to this realization that you were not really being the person that you wanted to be. Did you come to those realizations at the same time, or did you come to those realizations separately?

I do not think it is a click. It’s not something that clicks in that moment. It’s a journey that you’re going through. At least I went through. At the beginning, it was, first of all, the realization that something was off, as we said. Second, there was a version of me that was not connected internally. It was a mismatch between what I really think I was, my core values, and the person that was present with people. That was one moment. The second moment was probably more about the fact that I started to question a number of things I thought were true about leadership.

That was difficult because I realized that there was a time when I said, “Am I really willing to let some of the things I know about leadership go?” That was not easy because, especially if you consider yourself a successful individual, the last thing that you are open to doing is get rid of something coming from your past. Because at that time, you can see that it is the truth. That’s how things work. To me, that was a big moment. I need to let go of a number of things. That was the second moment.

The third moment, which was more deliberate, more creative, was what kind of leader do I really want to be? What is a different version? It’s not one moment. Going back to your question, it’s more about a moment of breakthrough that happens over time. That’s why it’s important. The work I introduce in this book about identity, because it’s quite pointless from experience. Fixing what you say, fixing how you show up, because they come at the end of the process, much more intimate.

It’s more really about you, who you are, your identity, who you want to be. Most of the coaches and most of the leadership development experience, J.R., in my experience, they tackle just marginally what’s going on in people because they tend to tackle the superficial element of that, meaning the behaviors. You’re not going through the identity work. It’s very difficult to make a huge difference in people.

You argue in the book that getting to that identity work often requires looking at your childhood and early experiences that shaped you and even some of your early career. How have you seen that play out with some of the senior executives that you’ve interviewed on your show or worked with? How did you see it playing out in yourself?

Uncovering Origin Identity And Inherited Leadership Defaults

The good news is what I talked about, the different identities, applies to all levels. It’s not, by the way, something that only happens to your manager or middle manager or CEOs. It happens to everybody because we are human. That is a great thing about all of us, that we have one thing in common. We are all human. What I think is interesting from my observation, J.R., is all of us, we have an inherited script and normally come from family, come from education, from values, from early experiences in company and organization, cultural corporate survival. They get installed very early.

Maybe they got awarded, and they turned into an automatic for us. That’s what I was referring to before, an autopilot. Under pressure, what I notice is that default takes over. When you even try to do something different, the context shifts, and maybe you’re thinking of doing something different. When the pressure hits, which is the point of the book, we tend to go to that default. To that inherited script that we had. The other comes from the very early, the beginning, what I call the origin identity in the book, or comes from a little bit more immediate experience, which is called the achieved identity. That’s more in the professional environment.

Regardless, that’s normally what we default to. That’s interesting because you do not choose it. That default, that identity, chooses you because that is the way inside of your mind how things should be run. Now, the freedom is that moment. The realization is, I do not want to be led by that. I do not want to be led by my past identity. I want to create something different. Sometimes people are either not aware of it, or maybe they are, but maybe they’re scared to embrace a different version than said. It’s a moment of truth. The moment of truth normally happens more frequently when you are aware, and second, when the pressure hits hard.

If you feel like you’re in one of those situations where you’re experiencing pressure and things are breaking down, how do you rationalize what you’re observing in yourself versus what you think you should be doing in terms of then course correcting?

The signals to me, there are so many, and what I find particularly interesting is the tangible signal always coming quite late. These are signals related to the performance results matrix. As we all know, that is not necessarily something that you see tomorrow morning. You might see it maybe in three months’ time. That’s not helping. What might be more useful is to start reading better what is happening in the moments. You have a meeting with your team and people.

Maybe they have stopped bringing you the truth, or maybe they are stepping back, or maybe they are not engaging in their body posture. Maybe they are not replying anymore to your messages. There are so many signals that you can read from your team, whether you are a CEO, from the board, or from how the chair is dealing with you. Even if you are a director or manager, it’s about how people are experiencing you. That is interesting because it’s not only about what people say, but it’s also about what people do not say.

It’s not only about what people do, but it’s also about what people do not do or stop doing. There are so many interesting factors. They are giving you some sort of indication that something is off. It’s internal, how you feel about yourself, but also in terms of how people experience you. That is not easy to spot unless you have an interest in how people are experiencing you, but also what level of curiosity you have. Are you curious enough to be open to reconsidering what you have been taking for granted about how people behave about you?

When you’re getting all these signals, this is something that I’ve certainly wrestled with in my own journey. How do you determine whether there is a consistency of those signals relative to it just being a quirk moment? You’re getting signals all the time. Many signals. Not all of them have the same meaning.

That is a very valid question. I would definitely look for patterns because one simple or single example might not necessarily be a reason for shifting or changing or reconsidering everything. I would say, honestly, I feel like we have some good indication of what these common patterns are that are surfacing. The question to me is, are you interested in going a little bit deeper and stopping in there and seeing what they really mean? There is one thing that I noticed, though, J.R., is especially when you get closer to the top, unfortunately, start to become your own habit.

One of the worst habits that leaders have is to really stop listening. Especially when you get to the top, you feel like it’s an obligation, given the responsibility you have, to speak more, to intervene more. As soon as you do it, your ability to listen decreases when you’re so focused on yourself in your thinking, in your speaking, in the way you’re behaving. One, you stop listening. Two, you stop really reading things because you are so focused on yourself. It’s a balance. One thing I learned from my own experience. My quality of listening has really changed after that moment.

I was so curious about people and conversations. I do not think a lot of leaders still have the level of curiosity and interest to have very generous and intentional listening when they’re in conversation. When the pressure hits, good luck with that, because the pressure will go back to your default. If you do not already have a strong orientation to people, the pressure will send you back to that survival-protecting mechanism to be the hero, to be the force, to be the driver of everything.

The Power Of Quiet Leadership And Intentional Listening

You make the case for quiet leadership. Is that going to work in all situations or does it only work in a subset of circumstances? I would imagine that there are probably some where you need somebody who’s much more confident and vocal in a moment, certainly, if not more generally.

It’s such a great point. I love to go a little bit deeper into this point because I wrote a number of articles for some magazine about this. I’m a big fan of quiet leadership. I do not know what your experience was when you were a child, J.R., but my experience, by the way, is very common to many people. My dad passed away this year and is clearly top of mind for me. Now in these moments, I actually start to reevaluate some of the things that happened when he was alive, when I was a child. One thing I realized at that time, I felt like it wasn’t missing for him. He was very quiet. He was silent.

He was listening. I think he had things in his mind. He was a busy manager. I have to say, the only time he was speaking, compared to my mom, he said something that landed with me. It was the power of influencing somebody in a conversation with the right things to say at the right time without ever raising their voice or interrupting me. He was really an interesting, quiet leader. He was a little bit introverted there, but that is, to me, slightly different than being introverted. You can be an extrovert being a quiet leader. It’s not a personality trait. It’s a way of leading.

Now, why I’m bringing this example, because I’ve seen a lot of time, a lot of great leaders, they’ve been very quiet. Quiet because they knew how to shift the context in the moment, and that was needed. On the other hand, I see so many leaders keep talking in any circumstances. That message gets diluted. First of all, because it’s repeated, but sometimes, especially when things change, even the quality of the message is not actually so well repeated. It twists it.

Sometimes it’s fluffier, sometimes more direct. Sometimes it projects one thing. Next time it projects something different. I do not believe that strong leadership is associated with being vocal or being a charismatic leader. To me, it’s what you say and how you say it at that moment. That is good news, I think, for many leaders. They consider themselves quiet, but they can really still shape conversation, people, and performance.

I lean toward that style as well and certainly try to ask more questions than make statements. I’m not always perfect at that, but I think you invite others into the conversation when you do that. As with everything else, it’s the power of having a team discover for themselves what really matters versus you having to tell them what really matters. The first is going to be a lot stronger, more effective in the long run. A lot of leaders just feel like they need to be in charge. It works against them.

It does. What I like to say is that, to me, quiet leadership is what I call control power. It’s a power to influence others in a controlled way. Where your emotions are, they are not in the way. By the way, then we can discuss about, but should leaders be showing some sort of emotion? Of course they do. It depends on how and in what context. When is it in a context of being open, transparent, vulnerable? Absolutely, yes. In the context of giving direction, maybe less.

Reinvention At The Top: Under pressure, our default takes over. When the pressure hits, we tend to go to that default—to that inherited script that we had.

The other thing as a distinction, I would say, “I want to believe because I saw that, that a loud leader creates motion.” Motion is not necessarily what we’re looking for. Sometimes what people are really waiting for from a leader is creating cohesion, alignment, a sense of ownership, empowerment, so people can take action. I just invite people to consider that there is a potentially different way of thinking about leadership. On the other hand, let’s not over-rotate it.

The risk is that people are going to stay so silent, maybe not interrupt the conversation, and let things go. This is a negative element of the interpretation of quiet leadership. Let’s clarify. Quiet leadership is not saying what you think, letting things fall apart, or not intervene when there is something that is wrong or that doesn’t work. It’s different. What we’re saying is, do not be noisy. Volume produces noise. Let’s not produce noise. Let’s produce power in a different way.

I want to come back to this idea of identity that you talked about earlier in the conversation. How would I, as a leader at any level, figure out what is an authentic strength for me versus one that I’m just portraying because I think that’s what leaders do? How do you figure out the difference?

That’s normally the work I do with leaders when we do a little bit more inner work when we are together. Honestly, that is something that many people ask me is, are you suggesting that a new identity could potentially undermine your authenticity? Actually, it’s the contrary. Actually, authenticity is going to drive the right identity that is needed in that moment because it is going to reconnect you to who you really are.

That’s why I’m thinking that what normally happens is that if your past identity is driving you, that normally is a reflection of your success, your strengths, your achievements, no matter what is needed right now. Actually, it’s very seldom that it is authentic because that is the mask. That is projected confidence. That is projected leadership. When I work with leaders, almost always I start from there.

What’s your new identity that is creating that moment? If you feel like something is off, then that process, that journey, it really actually has them going back to who they really are and who they want to be in that moment. It’s refreshing, it’s liberating, it’s freedom because people can finally reconnect with who they truly are, who they want to be, so authenticity is a very critical condition to do that work.

Shifting From A Polished Exterior To Authentic Leadership

Can you talk about an example where somebody that you’d worked with went from that polished exterior to having more of a truly authentic persona, including the warts and imperfections, and what that did for them?

I have so many examples you can imagine. I’ll probably give you a couple because they are different and they give you two different lengths. I coached a senior leader. He called me initially for what he thought was a career challenge. He struggled to get promoted. He thought, I’m so good. I provide so many great results, but why does somebody else always get a better job? His first orientation was, okay, the problem is there. It’s not me. It’s there. It’s the environment, it’s the culture, it’s politics. Great. Let’s talk about this.

I did not entertain that perspective because it was interesting to understand what was actually really happening with him. What I realized, actually, is that he had created an identity for himself that was all about success and career. They only happen when I’m able to demonstrate continuously in the environment how good. It was all about projecting. It was about showing, telling, talking, being visible, all of this identity that he created for himself. That’s so interesting because that was his strategy. Let’s talk in that way. That did not land at all. That did not produce any results in his career.

When we start to look at this identity, first of all, he started to recognize that it was something that he inherited from previous bosses because he had seen other people behaving that way. He said, “That is going to work for me too. Let me do it.” That did not work. When we went through the process, he started to create a completely different identity. That was his choice, not mine, of course. He started to create an identity that was more related to, I want to be somebody that can really empower others so people can step up, they can show up the results, and I’m the convener.

It was an easy process for somebody who so much anchored identity in his way of thinking, mindset. I can tell you, J.R., in a matter of weeks, which is the power of this work compared to the traditional leadership development journey. In a matter of weeks, I have actually interviewed people working with him, and they said, “Somebody has to show up to us.” It’s somebody who is really bringing people together. It’s not always the hero. It’s not always the person in front of them. He created space for others. He ended up having new opportunities at his job because people appreciated that identity.

What a great example of how you can shift your narrative, your story, in that way. I have another leader that is different. He’s somebody who learned that numbers win and humanity, empathy, and emotional intelligence do not matter. Giving straight feedback? No, that’s not me. He’s a very interesting leader. He got to the top with that sort of identity. That will work for me. I’ve seen that in the organization. I’m going to be exactly that kind of leader. He tried. It’s an interesting story.

He tried a number of coaches. They tried to work hard on his behaviors. You have to shift this. You have to do this. You have to get more feedback. Nothing actually stuck with him. Why? It’s because the identity work did not happen. In the coaching, he started to appreciate that there was a different type of leader that was needed. Only when he recognized that for himself was he able to embrace a different leadership and then land it.

People around him experienced somebody else. How powerful that could be. Now, J.R., you might think, “It seems very simple.” It’s simple as a concept, but it’s very difficult for some people to embrace it, to embed it in their own thinking, because we have been building this identity for ages, for decades. It’s not an easy change for people to think in a different way about themselves.

I guess another thing that’s on my mind, Andrea, is when you’re going through this process that you talk about, it’s not like you get a timeout and everybody has to hold off until you finish going through this inner work process. You can pick back up leading the organization and delivering results. How do you orchestrate that process, or give us an example of how one of your clients has orchestrated that process of reinventing themselves while dealing with stakeholders, investors, or whoever that wants to continue push every day.

You have to be comfortable staying in the gap for whatever it requires, because you’re right. The identity, the past identity, is still happening in the day-to-day when you have a conversation. Once you start to realize there is a different identity that you start creating, first of all, you are much more engaged. You are much more interested in conversation with people. People started to notice something, but primarily it’s for yourself because you started to reconnect with yourself, which is an important part, if not 50% of the work.

Reinvention At The Top: A loud leader creates motion, but motion is not necessarily what we’re looking for. What people are really waiting for from a leader is creating cohesion, alignment, and empowerment.

However, what I also noticed is try, test, learn, experience. Meaning, what I normally do with people, I do not ask them to rewrite their identity in a closed room for a month and then go back to the organization, “I have a new identity. Let me tell you what my identity is about. What do you think about this?” That doesn’t really work in that way. What does work is to start bringing, for example, what I suggest people do is take the four or five people around you, the people who cheer you, the people who trust you, the people that you are very close to, even could be your boss, by the way.

That is something I always try to see whether it’s possible to do. Go to them and say, “I want to talk with you.” I want to start a conversation about what is important to you. It’s a moment to reset expectations, for example. Let’s talk about the why. I had a number of conversations with people, and I asked something I would like to share. Some why conversation to get connected. In this conversation, you have no idea how powerful it could be for the people that I work with to test and say, “Let me tell you what is now important to me. What is a different leader I want to be because I really worked hard on myself in the last few weeks or whatever.”

Testing New Leadership Habits In A Safe Environment

It’s so interesting because you can test it in your speaking. You can see how people react, and you become much more comfortable. It’s really like rehearsing what you’re really working on. It’s an interesting story, an interesting way to bring it to life in a very safe and limited environment. Before going, for example, to your big team. Maybe if you’re leading a team, let’s wait. Let’s have this conversation first. That normally is really useful because it helps people to tweak, to refine, to have much more clarity in who you are and what you stand for, which is the part of the message, which is the pillar number two of the through line, the methodology in the book.

That is a great way to test it. It’s all about testing some specific habits, behavior that you start practicing in service of that identity and test it again in a safe environment. Maybe next time you’re one-on-one with a team member, say, “Great, now I’m going to do X because that is aligned with my new identity. I want to see how that lands.” It’s a process of testing, trying, refining, failing, trying it again. That is how it works. It’s a process that is required to get the level of transformation, if you want to call it in that way, that is required by the leader.

It takes a lot of courage to do that, even with your trusted, close people.

It does. That’s why some people, they’re not really willing to do it. Again, the default wins. When you are in doubt, where you do not see a reason for it, the default will always win. Once the default wins, look, if it’s going to produce results, great, go back to default. Normally, when we have this conversation with people, they recognize that default is not going to help. Something different is needed. Look, to be fair, I had some experiences where people initially rejected that. They wanted transformation, but they rejected the world.

They said, “Yes, it seems to be a good idea, but I do not know whether I really want to do it or not.” In the end, they changed their mind because they started to see positive traction from making their changes. Sometimes it seems to be a little bit thoughtful, but not by the coach. Thoughtful by themselves because they’re committed to something different. I can guarantee the experience will always be very rewarding and fulfilling for them.

For somebody who’s tuning in or watching the discussion, who senses that their next chapter is going to require some level of reinvention, where would you suggest they start? What would be a concrete action that they should take first?

The first one is going through that process of spending time with yourself, either alone or with somebody that can help you, a sounding board, a coach, a peer, a mentor, whatever is appropriate for you. Do some exercise, do some tests. The test is, who do I think I am as a leader? What do I believe in leadership? What do I take for granted? Great. Once you do that, then start asking the question. Are all of these things in service of what I am dealing with right now? Use the signals that we spoke about to see whether they are connected to it or they’re not.

That is a moment to say, if they’re serving what I’m dealing with, you do not need any reinvention. You’re on the right track. Keep going. If you feel like what you know about leadership is not anymore in service of what you’re dealing with, reinvention can happen at different levels, different layers, and different moments. I went through a reinvention even when I became an entrepreneur. I’m sure that you went through a similar experience yourself, J.R. That is a moment of truth. If you feel like something is needed, then start with that question.

I’m happy to let go of what I used to believe about leadership and what I would be happy to start embracing as my new narrative, my story, my identity for the future. That is the first step that you’re asking for, J.R., more into the book, because the book has a methodology called the through line, where the first part is going through the work of identity. The second part is, what is the message? What are you going to make unmistakable for people about what you stand for on the back of your identity? Finally, the presence, how people will experience you. It’s not your charisma.

It’s not your style. Is what standards you’re setting for yourself or others that are unmistakable for people because you keep repeating the same thing all over the time. It’s a true line. It’s architecture. It’s a way to see at any given time whether you’re in balance or out of balance. In the book, there are a number of sources, and on the website as well, there is a free scorecard you can take. You can see where you’re. By the way, it’s a very deep assessment. It’s not like a marketing tool. You can really play it out and see what potential gaps are. They might give you some indication of what to work on next.

This is launch week for you, right, as we’re recording this?

Yes. The book is out on 22nd of October, 2026.

I’m sure it feels like a big moment to get the book out into the world. I know from my own experience that it’s a very long process, only a small slice of which is actually writing the book.

That’s a completely different journey, as you said, in writing, then bringing to life. There is a moment of excitement because I think there is a story, a message, that is something that I never found in other books. Something was missing from the entire business ecosystem. Very curious to hear, to see how people will apply this. We’re bringing the methodology to a number of organizations as well, because that’s something that is worth bringing to, again, all the CEOs, the executive team, the directors.

It doesn’t matter where you are, because that is needed for everybody who is going through an important change and has a weight of responsibility on their shoulders. If people want to know more about it, just check the book website, www.ReinventionAtTheTop.com, where you can order the book, and you can actually download the scorecard and the PDF. If people want to talk a little bit more about it, they can contact me on LinkedIn. I’m very much present there.

Thank you again, Andrea. Take care.

Thank you so much, J.R., for a fantastic conversation.

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Four Key Takeaways On Executive Reinvention And Career Growth

Really interesting conversation with Andrea. Let me give you four ideas to take away. First is that success can sometimes become a constraint. It’s important to periodically question whether the habits and the tactics that have brought you to the point where you are are still serving the work ahead, the work of you and the work of your team and your organization. Second is to know your leadership scripts. We did not talk about this so much in the conversation itself, but we’ve got these things that we perform as leaders, and sometimes, under pressure, our inherited defaults take over. We say we do not want to be defensive, but we get defensive.

We say we want to ask questions rather than talking a lot, but we start talking a lot. Recognizing these things gives you a choice as to whether you want to keep behaving in that way or whether you actually want to pull yourself back into the way that will be right for that moment. Third is that authenticity is not the opposite of authority. Credibility grows when identity, message, and behavior align. This is a big part of the through line that Andrea talked about in the conversation. That means that people can see your rough edges.

You should always be working on improving, but this idea that you have to be the perfect, polished leader is unrealistic, and it’s not sustainable, and it doesn’t come across as authentic. There’s so much power in being more authentic. Finally, reinvention requires action, not just introspection. Yes, you have to do the inner work, but then you have to figure out what am I going to stop doing? What am I going to keep doing? What am I going to start doing? All of that allows you, over time, in that test, to learn, iterate the approach that Andrea discussed, and become the leader that you want to become.

I hope you found this conversation valuable. Please subscribe, leave us a review, and share the episode with someone in your life or your workplace who is working on becoming a better leader or trying to build a stronger career. If you’re an organization, I do workshops and keynotes on a variety of management topics. If you’re an individual, you can sign up for my membership community, which is called Pathwise, and our newsletter, PathWisdom. Thanks for tuning in. I’ll see you next time on the show. Take care.

Important Links

• Andrea Petrone
• Andrea Petrone on LinkedIn
• The World Class Leader Show
• Reinvention at the Top
• PathWisdom
• PathWise on LinkedIn
• PathWise on Facebook
• PathWise on YouTube
• PathWise on Instagram
• PathWise on TikTok
• PathWise on Twitter
• Be the Boss You Wish You’d Had: A People-First Guide to Management

About Andrea Petrone

Andrea Petrone coaches CEOs and senior leadership teams through the high-stakes moments that define careers – transitions, crises, reinventions and the personal demands of leading under pressure. Known as The CEO Whisperer, he focuses on how leaders think, decide and perform when the stakes are highest. His work is built on what he’s seen firsthand in the room with leaders at the top.

Over the past two decades, Andrea has worked internationally across Europe, the Middle East and Asia with leaders from global corporations, mid-market and management consulting companies He has partnered with CEOs and senior leaders from organizations including Shell, Unilever, Denora, Takeda, EssilorLuxottica, ENI and Snam. Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, Andrea spent more than twenty years in senior leadership roles – including CEO and managing director positions – across the energy sector, construction and management consulting.

Andrea also serves as a senior leadership advisor with JMW, supporting large-scale transformation programs. He is also the host of The World-Class Leaders Show, a leadership podcast ranked among the top 5% globally, where he interviews leading CEOs and global business figures about the decisions and mindsets behind exceptional leadership. He publishes the CEO Playbook newsletter and leads WCL21, a private membership for CEOs committed to leading at the highest level.

Originally from Italy, Andrea has lived and worked in multiple countries and is now based in London, UK. He holds a Master of Management from IE Business School and is a certified executive and neuroscience coach.