Borrow the Moves, Own the Leadership Dance

Borrow the Moves, Own the Leadership Dance: Why authentic leadership is learned on the dance floor 

A few weeks ago, I was sitting with a client who was being weighed down by one word: authenticity. They had stepped into a bigger role, read the books, and been told repeatedly to ‘just be yourself’. And they were quietly worried, because they weren’t sure who that leadership ‘self’ actually was. Every time they caught themselves doing something they had seen a former boss do, it felt like cheating. As if real leaders arrive with a style already formed, and somehow theirs had got lost in the post. 

They are far from alone. KPMG’s research into senior women leaders found that three quarters had experienced impostor syndrome at some point in their careers. Almost a third of those linked it to not knowing others in a similar position. When we can’t see people like us doing the thing, we doubt ourselves. 

That tells us something important. We look to others first. That isn’t a weakness. It’s how humans learn. 

So I offered my client a different picture…

…Leadership Is Like Dancing 

Imagine you’re on a dance floor. You have your own way of moving, the steps that feel natural to you. Then you notice someone across the room doing something you think is brilliant. You try it. It feels good, so you keep it, and before long it’s part of how you dance. 

Then you see someone doing a move you’re less sure about. You give it a go, and it just doesn’t work for you, so you let it go. And every now and then you see a move and think, I am never doing that. That’s a choice too, and often a revealing one. 

Nobody on that dance floor invented every move they make. Yet nobody dances quite like anyone else. 

Leadership works in exactly the same way. The leader you admire for staying calm in a crisis, the one who makes every person in a meeting feel heard, the one who delivers difficult news with real kindness: none of them started from scratch. They watched, borrowed, practised, discarded, and refined until it became theirs. 

Authenticity isn’t where you start. It’s what you build. 

Borrowing Isn’t Faking 

There is a difference between borrowing a move and copying someone’s whole routine. If you try to become a carbon copy of another leader, people will notice, and so will you. But taking a piece of how someone runs a meeting, how they open a difficult conversation, or how they celebrate their team, and making it fit your own rhythm? That’s not inauthentic. That’s development. 

Herminia Ibarra’s research at INSEAD makes the same point. Leaders who cling too tightly to a fixed idea of their ‘true self’ often struggle when they step into bigger roles, while those who experiment, borrowing from a range of role models and trying on new ways of leading, grow faster and further. 

Another way to picture it is as a jigsaw. You take pieces from lots of other people’s pictures, and when you put them together, you create a view that is entirely your own. 

Why This Matters Commercially 

This isn’t just about how leaders feel. It shows up in results. 

Daniel Goleman’s research into nearly 4,000 executives identified six distinct leadership styles: coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and coaching. The leaders who got the best results weren’t the ones with a single signature style. They were the ones who could move between several, depending on what the moment demanded. Very few people start out fluent in all six. The only way to build that range is to watch others use the styles you lack, try them, and practise. 

Which brings me to a gentle challenge. When a leader tells me ‘that’s just not me’, it is sometimes a genuine values boundary. But it’s sometimes comfort dressed up as authenticity. The coach who never sets direction, the pacesetter who never slows down to listen: both can hide behind ‘being themselves’, and both will hit a ceiling. 

Ask yourself:  

• Which leaders have I worked with whose ‘moves’ I still think about, and what exactly were they doing?
• What have I tried in the past that didn’t feel right, and was it genuinely wrong for me, or just new?
• Is there a move I’ve ruled out as ‘not me’ that I might actually need?

Ask Your Dance Partners 

Here’s the part most leaders skip. You are never dancing alone. Your team, your peers and your stakeholders are your dance partners, and they experience your style in a way you never can from the inside. 

So ask them. Not ‘how am I doing?’, which invites a polite non-answer, but something specific: What’s one thing I do that you’d like to see more of? What’s one thing that doesn’t quite land for you? You may find different people want different things from you. That isn’t a problem to fix. It’s information that lets you tailor your leadership to the individuals in front of you, which is exactly what Goleman’s most effective leaders do. 

VB&A’s Dance Floor Leadership Experiment 

1. Watch: Name three leaders you admire and identify one specific move each of them makes. Then name one move you would never make, and ask yourself why. That answer will tell you a lot about your values. 

2. Try: Pick one move and practise it for a month in lower-stakes settings first, a team meeting rather than a board presentation. 

3. Keep or drop: Reflect honestly. Did it work? Did it feel like you? Be careful to separate the discomfort of something new from a genuine mismatch. The first fades with practice. The second doesn’t. 

4. Ask: Go to two or three people you trust and ask them the specific questions above. Listen for patterns rather than single comments. 

Your move this week: Think of one leader whose style you genuinely admire and invite them for a coffee. Ask them where they learned it. I can almost guarantee the answer will start with ‘I watched someone who…’ 

The Takeaway 

Authentic leadership isn’t a fixed starting point you either have or haven’t got. It’s a style you assemble over time, from the moves you see others make, the ones you try, the ones you keep and the ones you let go. Feeling unsure of your own style isn’t a sign you’re inauthentic. It’s a sign you’re still building, and every great leader you’ve ever admired did exactly the same. 

So stop worrying about whether your moves are original. Watch the dance floor, try what catches your eye, ask your partners what’s working, and keep what’s genuinely yours. 

If you’d like support helping your leaders find their own style with confidence, through one-to-one coaching or team development, we’d love to talk.  

Victoria Buckenham 2026