Leadership Beyond Inheritance

There is a subtle trap that high-performing executives often fall into: inheriting roles, structures, and definitions of leadership without ever questioning whether they were designed for them.

For many multicultural women leaders, this trap is reinforced by a lifetime of adapting. From the earliest days in our careers, we learn to read the room, adjust to expectations, and prove ourselves in systems that were not created with our voices in mind. We become experts at fitting in. And while this adaptability helps us advance, it can also leave us in roles that do not truly reflect us.

One executive I worked with realized this after a promotion she had long wanted. The seat came with visibility, influence, and authority. But as she stepped into it, she discovered that the responsibilities had been defined by predecessors who thrived on constant availability and transactional leadership. That wasn’t her style. She valued strategic focus, depth, and mentoring. She found herself living in a job description written for someone else’s identity.

This is the reality for many women. The leadership “inheritance” we receive — whether it’s a role, a team culture, or even an industry standard — often carries assumptions that don’t match our strengths or values. But because we’ve been conditioned to be grateful, we hesitate to question it.

Here’s the truth: leadership should not be about inheritance. It should be about design.

Designing your own model of leadership means you stop measuring yourself against expectations you didn’t set. You stop asking how to live up to the job description, and start asking how the role can evolve to reflect the leader you’ve become.

That shift is not easy. It means confronting discomfort. It may mean challenging norms or disrupting patterns that others would prefer you maintain. But without it, you risk disappearing into a role that demands your presence but never reflects your essence.

One of the most transformative exercises I use with clients is to map what they inherited versus what they want to design. On one side: tasks, structures, and values they’ve absorbed by default. On the other: the work, boundaries, and priorities that would reflect their real leadership. Seeing those two lists side by side often creates an undeniable truth: they’ve been carrying more inheritance than design.

The breakthrough comes when they begin shifting, piece by piece, from inheritance to authorship. For some, it looks like changing the way their teams communicate — moving from endless reporting to real collaboration. For others, it’s setting boundaries around availability so they can lead with presence, not exhaustion. For one leader, it meant declining high-profile projects that didn’t align with her long-term vision, even if others thought she was stepping back.

What these women found is that when they stopped inheriting and started designing, they didn’t lose influence — they gained it. Their leadership became clearer, more sustainable, and more compelling to those around them.

If you feel the weight of a role that doesn’t quite fit, ask yourself:

• Which parts of my leadership are inherited habits, not conscious choices?

• Where am I carrying someone else’s definition of success?

• What would my leadership look like if I designed it from the inside out?

You don’t have to abandon your role to do this work. You have to be willing to edit it. You have to be willing to let go of the inheritance that no longer serves you.

Leadership beyond inheritance is not about rejecting the past — it’s about refusing to be confined by it. It’s about honoring what got you here, while creating space for the leader you are now.

The seat you occupy is not a museum piece to preserve. It is a living structure you are allowed to reshape. And the more you shape it to reflect you, the more powerful and sustainable your leadership becomes.