The Perfectionist
When nothing ever feels good enough.
Overpreparing, overworking and struggling to delegate. The pursuit of high standards can become constant checking, leaving colleagues feeling that nothing they do is ever quite right.
What if the behaviours holding your leaders back helped them succeed?
The leader who checks everything. The manager who can't say no. The person who becomes critical under pressure or turns that criticism inwards.
These behaviours have an impact, but there's often more happening beneath the surface.
Meet the four Pretender Masks
The People Pleaser
When keeping everyone happy comes at a cost.
Saying yes beyond capacity, seeking approval and avoiding difficult conversations. Expectations become unclear, performance issues go unresolved and resentment can build.
The Persecutor of Others
When pressure turns into blame.
Becoming critical, dismissive or controlling when things go wrong. Others may withdraw, stop challenging decisions or become reluctant to bring problems into the open.
The Persecutor of Self
When the harshest critic is yourself.
Turning blame inwards, doubting judgement and discounting achievements. Even capable leaders can hold back their contribution or struggle to trust their own decisions.
These aren't labels that define who someone is. They're patterns that can be recognised and changed. Understanding them doesn't remove responsibility for the impact of our behaviour; it gives us a starting point for responding differently.
Nearly 2,000 people have taken our Pretender Positions Quiz.
If you’d like to find out more about how the masks show up in your life, you can take the test here.
The mask might be individual. The impact rarely is.
When a leader struggles to delegate, avoids difficult conversations or responds to pressure with blame, the effects reach beyond that individual. Trust can weaken, conversations become less honest and teams can develop their own ways of working around the behaviour.
This is why our Paseda360 methodology explores three connected dimensions of change.
Core
What's driving the behaviour?
We explore the experiences, beliefs and protective patterns beneath the mask.
Connection
How does it affect other people?
We explore the impact on trust, communication, honesty and relationships.
Collective
What happens when patterns become embedded?
We explore how repeated behaviours shape team dynamics, shared responsibility and culture.
How we help your people change
You can't change what you don't recognise.
Recognising a Pretender Mask creates an opportunity to ask different questions. Why does a capable leader struggle to let go of control? Why does someone keep saying yes when they're already overwhelmed? What happens when pressure turns into criticism?
PasedaLeader uses the model to help people look beneath these behaviours with curiosity and honesty. Through coaching, leaders can explore what they're protecting, understand their impact on others and develop more constructive ways of responding.
The aim isn't simply to change individual behaviour in isolation. It's also to consider the pressures, expectations and organisational conditions that influence how people behave.
Which patterns feel familiar to you?
It's often easier to recognise these behaviours in others than in ourselves. Understanding our own responses can be the first step towards changing them.
Explore the Pretender Masks quiz and reflect on the patterns that might be influencing how you show up at work.
Take our quizThe Pretender Masks Model® in the Press
The Pretender Masks Model® explores the protective patterns people develop to gain approval, avoid judgement and maintain a sense of safety. Angela Cox has written extensively about how these patterns influence leadership, relationships and organisational performance, helping leaders recognise the behaviours that can keep them from showing up as themselves.
How to Step Out of Your Mask as a Leader
Many women learn to adjust their confidence, directness and visibility according to what they believe others will accept. Angela Cox explores how these adjustments can become established leadership patterns, drawing on the four masks within the Pretender Masks Model®. She examines the hidden cost of perfectionism, people pleasing and self-criticism, and shares practical ways leaders can begin developing greater self-trust and showing up more authentically.
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The Pressure to Fit In: The Hidden Cost of Pretending in Senior Leadership
Senior leaders can become highly skilled at adapting themselves to meet organisational expectations, often without recognising the personal and professional cost. Drawing on the Pretender Masks Model® and reflections from former senior executive Rob Regan, Angela Cox examines how protective patterns influence decision-making, relationships and leadership behaviour. The article explores what becomes possible when leaders begin recognising these patterns and developing the confidence to lead more congruently.
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What Is the Pretending Pandemic? Angela Cox Explains More
What if some of the decisions leaders believe are entirely rational are being influenced by an unconscious need for approval, control or protection? Angela Cox introduces the four patterns within the Pretender Masks Model® and examines how perfectionism, people pleasing, self-criticism and controlling behaviour can influence leadership decisions. She explores how recognising these patterns can help leaders develop greater self-awareness, strengthen relationships and make decisions that better serve their organisations.
Read Article
Recognising these behaviours in your organisation?
Whether you're seeing familiar patterns in an individual leader or across an entire team, let's explore what's happening beneath the surface and what needs to change.
Talk to us