You Can’t Lead With Both Hands Tied To The Past

When was the last time you judged someone by their job title?

More uncomfortably, when was the last time you judged yourself by yours?

Do you still walk into meetings thinking about who didn’t believe in you 10 years ago? Do you chase every opportunity like it’s a chance to prove something to people who have long forgotten you? Have your scars quietly become your script?

If you’re nodding, or flinching, then good—we’re getting somewhere.

Firstly, too many leaders today are still in conversation with their wounds. And I don’t mean emotional wounds in the abstract, poetic sense. I mean concrete, daily drivers of decision-making. The need to be seen. The fear of irrelevance. The hangover of corporate betrayals and boardroom humiliations. I’ve sat across CXOs who are still replaying their first rejection letter from 25 years ago—and they’ve since built multi-billion-dollar businesses.

A founder I once worked with built his entire empire because someone in B-school said, “You’ll never make it big. You don’t have the personality.” Now, every time he closes a deal, he still imagines proving that one person wrong. That ghost got free rent in his mind—and a front-row seat to every success.

He laughed when I pointed it out. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “But at what emotional cost?”

We love telling stories of resilience, but we rarely ask: what are you still holding on to that you no longer need? And more importantly—what is it costing you in clarity, in joy, in presence?

Secondly, we need to talk about our dangerous obsession with titles. Somewhere along the way, we started equating designations with destiny. “VP,” “ED,” “President Emeritus”—we wear them like armour. The problem is, armour is heavy. And eventually, it rusts.

I know a gentleman—let’s call him Rajiv—who clings to his old corporate title like a security blanket. Even three years after his exit, his email signature still reads “Group President (Retd.)”. No one’s asked him to change it. No one even notices anymore. But he notices. Because in his mind, the title is the last standing proof of relevance.

He once joked, “It just makes people respond faster.”

I smiled. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s stopping you from responding to the life waiting on the other side of that full stop.”

Let’s be clear—there’s nothing wrong with ambition. But when your self-worth is welded to a chair, a designation, or a business card, every change feels like a personal death. And that’s no way to live, let alone lead.

Thirdly, purpose isn’t a slogan you slap on a vision deck. It’s what you do when there’s no one clapping, no one watching, and nothing left to prove. A mid-level manager in a Pune factory taught me this far better than any management book could.

He’d been passed over for promotion thrice. Understandably bitter. But instead of sulking, he started spending Sundays mentoring younger workers. Just showing up. No agenda. No ego. Six months in, those very juniors nominated him for the company’s leadership programme.

When I asked him why he kept going, he said simply, “Because I finally stopped working for the next title. I started working for the people.” No corporate offsite can teach you that kind of alignment.

As I often say, “Purpose shows up when ego finally shuts up.” You don’t discover it on a mountain or in a TED Talk. You find it when you’re too tired to perform, and still choose to contribute.

Fourthly, we have to admit something no one likes saying aloud—our work cultures are full of performers, not leaders. We’re taught to bottle up emotions, to “project confidence,” to stay unshakeable in front of teams. The result? A generation of leaders pretending not to feel while quietly imploding.

A woman executive in a fintech firm once told me, “Every time I express doubt, my manager treats it like weakness. So I’ve trained myself to fake certainty.” She now gets praised for being “rock solid.” She’s anything but. She’s just scared of being seen.

We keep rewarding the mask, and then we wonder why so many in senior positions feel empty, disconnected, or burnt out.

Look—healing is not a luxury. It’s leadership hygiene. If you’re running on old trauma, you’ll leak that trauma into your decisions, your teams, your culture.

A retired board chairman once said to me, “My grandkids still think I sell soap. I haven’t figured out how to explain what a holding company does.”

I told him, “Maybe that’s a blessing. They see you—not your résumé.”

Fifthly, and perhaps most importantly, we need to unlearn the idea that letting go is weakness. It’s not. It’s the ultimate flex. To walk away from stories that no longer serve you. To stop clinging to the version of you that needed to hustle for validation. To say, “That’s who I was. Here’s who I choose to become.”

One of the wisest founders I know told me this recently: “I built my first company to prove I was worth something. I’m building my second because I just love solving problems. The first made me rich. The second makes me free.”

That’s the kind of wealth I wish for more of us.

If you’ve read this far, here’s your mirror:

If I took away your designation, your corner office, your stock options, your followers—who are you?

If your answer is, “Still someone who can create, contribute, and connect,” then congratulations. You’ve started untying the ropes.

And if your answer is silence, that’s okay too. It means there’s work to do. Not on your CV, but on your story.

Because here’s the truth—you cannot build anything meaningful with both hands tied to your past.

Let go—not to forget, but to make space. For the leader you’re still becoming. For the person behind the title. For the strength that no one can promote you into.

And the next time you meet someone clinging to their old wounds, offer them this instead of advice:

“What could you build, if both hands were free?”

Dr. Srinath Sridharan is a policy researcher and corporate advisor.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of NDTV Profit or its editorial team.