How to discover your superpowers, own your story, and unlock leadership growth

Executive overview

The stories we tell ourselves shape every decision we make as leaders — and most of those stories are wrong. Donna Lichaw's coaching framework starts inside out: understand yourself first, then lead others. It uses narrative structure, real user research on your own leadership, and small experiments to test and rewrite the stories holding you back.

The most effective stories are the ones we tell ourselves — and we can choose better ones.

The power of self-story in leadership

• Leading others starts with leading yourself; concentric circles outward — self, one-on-one, team, organisation
• The stories we tell ourselves may or may not be true, but the brain can't tell the difference
• "Horror stories" — we're never going to make it, nobody listens to me — cloud every interaction and can become self-fulfilling
• External storytelling matters far less than the internal narrative driving your behaviour
• Purpose and mission must come from within; external validation alone is an eggshell ready to crack

Auditing the stories you tell yourself

• Treat self-stories as hypotheses, not facts — get data before accepting them
• Gather feedback from colleagues the way you'd do customer discovery: go talk to your "users"
• Some stories are false (the CEO who thought he was "too nice" — his team called him heartfelt and caring)
• Some stories are true but misdiagnosed: the quiet executive wasn't disengaged, she was a deep listener with a poker face
• The fix isn't always what the story implies — she didn't need to talk more, she needed to communicate her listening style
• Personal OS (or "readme") documents help teams understand each other's processing styles without forcing change

Reframing imposter syndrome

• Imposter syndrome doesn't always need to be rewritten — ask how it's serving you first
• For one founder, it reliably triggered a growth response: read, learn, upskill, repeat
• The risk is over-indexing: taking on excess emotional labour or burning out doing work that isn't yours
• Find the functional middle — embrace it as a signal of hitting a growth edge without letting it take over
• Don't deny it or suppress it; embrace it proportionally

Kryptonite: what feels like weakness may be an asset

• Kryptonite = the traits, tendencies, or conditions you think harm you
• Some kryptonite is worth eliminating (scheduling tasks, toxic relationships — automate or remove)
• Inner kryptonite deserves examination: how does this trait serve you?
• Dyslexia and ADHD — often reframe as spatial, visual, big-picture thinking that drives founder-level pattern recognition
• The "too quiet" executive's kryptonite was actually a deep listening superpower obscured by a poker face
• Kryptonite on a spectrum: small doses can be useful (like surgical kryptonite for Superman); too much is destructive
• Hulk's anger is both kryptonite and superpower — removing it doesn't make him better, just inert

Identifying your superpowers

• Strengths-finder quizzes (StrengthsFinder, VIA Character Strengths) are a starting point but lack context
• More effective: pull superpowers out of peak experiences from across your life — childhood, recent past, how you entered your field
• Look for recurring themes across three or more stories; superpowers appear at the moments you were most energised and effective
• The executive told her strength was "strategy" — too vague; through story analysis she identified her actual superpower: connecting themes, people, and ideas
• Don't conflate what others praise you for with what actually lights you up — she was praised for attention to detail but that was her kryptonite
• Playing to strengths has compounding returns; fixing weaknesses is mostly wasted energy

Applying superpowers without over-using them

• Problem-solving as a superpower becomes a liability when senior leaders stay in the weeds solving everyone else's problems
• Adaptability has pros and cons — great for navigating change, risky if it means never committing to a direction
• Manage energy, not time: do more of what lights you up; outsource, automate, or cut the rest
• Energy audit your day: track what gives and drains energy after each activity, meeting, or task
• If most of what you do saps your energy and you can't change it, change the context or the role

Running experiments on yourself

• Gestalt coaching principle: don't force change — embrace what is working, then experiment toward what's possible
• Leave every coaching session with a small experiment already attempted, not just a plan
• In-room experiments (30 seconds of role play) reveal more than hour-long commitments outside the room
• The quiet executive ran a 30-second listening experiment in session — it was terrifying, but surfaced the real issue
• Filter experiments through head (thoughts), heart (emotion), and hands/body (physical sensation) — the body often knows before the mind does
• A flushed face, numb hands, or tension in the shoulders are data points, not noise
• Like product development: hypothesise, test, get data, iterate — but go deeper into felt experience, not just metrics

Superheroes and the discomfort of discovering your gifts

• Superheroes don't immediately embrace their powers — they wreak havoc, try to reject them, and find them uncomfortable
• Superman tries to give up his powers; the Hulk can't function without his anger
• Accepting a superpower is its own growth edge, separate from using it effectively
• Small experiments that grow bigger over time are how you move from discomfort to mastery

Finding your goals when you don't know what they are

• Start with the ending: project yourself years forward and engage all five senses — what do you see, hear, feel, smell, who is there?
• Write the journey backward from that vision as an experimental roadmap
• If no vision comes, sit with the blank until something emerges — you can't plot a path without a destination
• The actual outcome will diverge from the vision; the point is fuel, not prediction
• Common trap: "In five years I'm not working" — nearly everyone in tech says this; what matters is clarity on the impact you want to make, not the literal scenario

Managing energy and Zoom fatigue

• Zoom fatigue is neurological — visual and auditory input only, no physical stimuli to close the circuit
• Practical fixes: limit meetings per day, schedule active breaks, use fidgets to provide physical grounding during calls
• No-meeting days and in-person social time help reset baseline energy
• If the energy drain is structural and unchangeable, the question shifts from management to whether you're in the right context

The "isn't that interesting" practice

• Favourite motto from a mentor: when something extreme happens, respond internally with "isn't that interesting?"
• Creates an optimistic, non-judgmental stance — not forced positivity, but radical appreciation
• Notice what's happening in your body and mind without immediately labelling it good or bad
• Leads to more informed, mindful responses rather than reactive ones
• Equivalent to Buddhist non-judgmental awareness, without requiring meditation