Do you consider yourself to be an elite leader?
Elite leaders often pride themselves on being different. They didn’t conform; they disrupted. They didn’t fit in; they stood out. And that belief, that difference is their crown jewel, and it’s likely true, to a point.
However, anything brought out into the light has a shadow. Here’s the shadow that most elite leaders never turn to see: the very armor that made you unbreakable out there often came at the cost of breaking off, or at least burying something powerful within.
To become the man the world applauded, most of us abandoned the boy inside. We may see that boy as the parts of us that were labeled soft, messy, emotional, scared, or any number of other things that were negatively labeled. The truth is that exile worked; it got you here. But it won’t get you where your heart and soul cry out to be.
According to research, leaders often develop defense mechanisms or “armor” to protect themselves externally. Still, these mechanisms create internal disconnection, preventing them from connecting authentically with their teams and themselves.
TL;DR: The armor that won you applause exiled the boy in you. Exile buys performance at the cost of connection; turning toward him is the threshold from achievement to wholeness.
My Own Reckoning
If you’ve been following my journey and my work, you know I’ve faced my fair share of crucibles. One of the most impactful of those crucibles wasn’t on Wall Street or in a boardroom. It was a personal reckoning, sitting across from my mother at dinner, and finally saying:
“I love you, Mom, but I’ve come to realize that I can’t be the man you needed. I’ve spent my life trying to make up for the shitty men you chose, and all it’s cost me is my soul.”
Please understand, nothing about this conversation was about blaming my mother or even the partners she had chosen. No, this was about me taking responsibility for becoming a man on my own terms.
It was the first time I stopped living as the “Superman/super-son version of Dov” and told the truth of the boy I had abandoned. It felt brutally hard. It felt like betrayal. But it was also the moment I finally reclaimed myself.
Gallup (2023) Current leadership research suggests that admitting vulnerability, especially when confronting formative relationships and past patterns, can enable leaders to reclaim authenticity and develop deeper trust both outside and inside their workplace. Vulnerability, of course, must be delivered with discretion. It’s not about weeping and blowing snot bubbles; it’s about revealing your humanity.
TL;DR: I stopped performing the “super-son,” took responsibility, and told the truth. Vulnerability offered with discretion is not theatrics; it is how a leader returns to authenticity and rebuilds trust.
The Silent Crisis of the Elite
You may or may no longer have a mother (or father) you can have that kind of conversation with, and that’s okay. Again, I remind you, nothing about this is blame! However, it is worth taking some time to have that conversation with yourself, even if it’s only in your journal, to reflect on whether you have been unconsciously living by someone else’s standards. 
Many leaders never turn back toward that abandoned boy, and here’s what happens:
Your power calcifies into performance.
And worst of all? You build organizations full of people who mimic you; polished, armored, and empty.
As leaders, we have a societal responsibility to show up, not as hollowed out shells of accomplishment, but as whole, emotionally connected, empowered men.
We are the ones guiding the next generation, and we must show them that it’s possible to achieve success without abandoning our humanity.
I am deeply saddened by the number of men in their 20s and 30s who are experiencing emotional distress, loneliness, and feeling lost.
TL;DR: Leaders who stay armored raise cultures of armor. The cost is generational: hollow men, empty organizations.
The Questions Men Carry in Silence
Q1: “Dov, what if I don’t even know who that boy inside me is anymore?”
I hear you. Most of us don’t. We buried him so deep under achievement, performance, and armor that he’s become a ghost. But here’s the truth: you don’t need to “find” him like a lost set of keys. You need to listen to the parts of you that still ache. The anger that feels disproportionate. The grief that sneaks out sideways. The loneliness in a crowded room. That’s the boy. He’s not gone—he’s knocking. Will you answer?
Q2: “If I take off the armor, won’t people just see me as weak?”
That’s the fear, isn’t it? That without the mask, you’ll be exposed and diminished. But here’s the paradox: when you strip off the armor, what people actually see is your strength. Not the brittle strength of stone, but the living strength of oak. Vulnerability isn’t weakness; it’s proof that you’ve stopped outsourcing your identity to applause. People don’t trust perfection—they trust humanity. And that’s the edge no one else can fake.
Q3: “I’m successful. I’ve built the empire. Why isn’t it enough?”
Because success built on exile is a prison with velvet walls. You thought achievement would fill the hole, but the boy you abandoned still sits in the dark, starving. No accolade will silence him. The only thing that will quiet that hunger is integration—bringing him back into the room. When you do, success stops being a chase and starts being a choice.
Q4: “I’m angry all the time. At the world. At politics. At women. At myself. What do I do with that?”
First, stop pretending anger is the problem. Anger is the smoke, not the fire. Underneath it is pain you’ve never given yourself permission to feel. The boy in you wasn’t allowed to cry, so the man in you only knows how to rage. Sit with the fire. Ask it: What am I really grieving? What am I terrified to admit I’ve lost? Until you name that truth, your anger will own you. Once you name it, it becomes fuel.
Q5: “What if I lead from this place, and my people don’t follow?”
Then they’re not your people. Let that sink in. If you lead armored, you’ll attract armored. If you lead whole, you’ll attract whole. That’s how culture is born. Will some peel away? Yes. But the ones who stay will give you something far greater than compliance. They’ll give you trust, creativity, and the kind of loyalty no paycheck can buy.
Q6: “What if I’m too far gone?”
Brother, if you’re breathing, you’re not too far gone. The fact that you’re even entertaining it tells me there’s still a live wire of truth inside you. If you’re breathing, you’re not too far gone. Don’t waste another year pretending the ache isn’t real. Start now. Pick up the pen and write to the boy you left behind. Let him tell you what he’s been waiting for. Then listen. That’s the beginning of reclaiming your wholeness.
TL;DR: Men don’t ask these questions out loud, but they live them every day. Answering them with humanity is leadership.
When We’re Lost, It Can Feel Good to Have Someone to Blame.
Out of frustration, the Left blames the Right. The Right blames the Left.
Or a list of others: Immigrants. Billionaires. The media. The woke mob. The conspiracy theorists.
Pick your villain.
Blame them hard enough, and guess what, you don’t have to face yourself.
And that is the real sickness.
Blame is the emotional pacifier of a lost generation of men. Blame facilitates the behavior of a disenfranchised, fatherless adolescent, desperately looking for belonging in all the wrong places.
Lack of Purpose:
According to a Harvard University study, 60% of young adults feel their lives lack meaning and purpose. That lack of meaning and purpose has a strong, direct correlation with anxiety and depression, particularly in young men in their 20s and 30s.
The Masculinity Algorithm: How Social Media Is Radicalizing a Generation of Emotionally Starved Boys
In the absence of male leaders who step up and step into their own healthy vulnerability, a different kind of “father figure” emerges from the online manosphere; one that does not care about the souls of men. These serogate father-figures are morally vacuous individuals.
TL;DR: Without emotionally intelligent male leaders, lost men turn to toxic surrogates online.
Bad Solutions to a Real Problem
People like Andrew Tate are ruthless, media whores based in hyper-masculine, misogynistic.
As disgusting as you or I may find these individuals, we must recognize that even though we may see them as the problem, they are not: What they are is a (bad) solution to a problem we have avoided. This article serves as a call to all senior leaders.
We all need to BELONG! When we lack a healthy place to belong, we often choose a more dangerous “fitting in” as a substitute.
A fascinating insight from psychology is that when we don’t know who we are, we often define ourselves by what we are against.
As a result, we join groups, movements, and ideologies that give us a false sense of belonging, as long as we hate the right people.
Look at the data: only 23% of employees worldwide feel engaged at work (Gallup, 2023). That’s not about performance. It’s about disconnection. And it starts at the top.
It’s no secret that men are less likely than women to seek professional help or use mental health services, often because of stigma, gendered expectations, or a lack of emotional vocabulary.
Research from Gallup and organizational psychology consistently finds that disengagement is strongly linked to a lack of authentic, emotionally intelligent leadership, creating cultures where employees emulate surface-level compliance rather than actual connection and creativity.
TL;DR: Figures like Andrew Tate are not the root problem. They’re the vacuum-filling “bad solution” when healthy belonging is missing.
The Hard Truth:
Today and every day, someone in your organization is battling loneliness so deep that it could kill them. You might never guess who that is, because they might be your top performer, your most loyal employee, or even the one who always seems to have it all together. This is a reality we cannot ignore, and it’s a call to action for all of us.
If you’re not creating a Culture Of Belonging, you could lose your best people in ways you can’t afford; emotionally, professionally, or tragically, permanently.
TL;DR: Disconnection kills. Loneliness is lethal, even among top performers. Leaders can’t ignore this reality.
Rewriting the Code
This is where Emotional Source Code™ comes in. Every elite leader has an unconscious survival script:
Foundation: That early wiring where you learned safety meant abandoning parts of yourself.
Anatomy of Meaning: The lens: “If I’m exceptional, I’ll never be left behind.”
Identity: The mask; invincible CEO, golden child, unbreakable achiever.
Beliefs & Values: Dressed-up survival: grit, resilience, dominance.
Behaviors: The outward armor. Applauded. Respected. But not whole.
“Emotional Source Code™” explores how early emotional wiring shapes adult leadership behavior and organizational culture.
TL;DR: Emotional Source Code™ reveals how exile shapes leadership and culture. Rewriting it is how leaders reclaim wholeness.
Leading with Vulnerability
As Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead book from 2018 argues, peeling back the armor and rewriting internal scripts enables not only personal growth but also organizational transformation.
Rewriting that code doesn’t make you less exceptional. It makes you more human, and that’s the only edge AI can’t replicate.
What Changes When a Man Reclaims the Boy
Everything changes when leaders peel back the armor:
Because when people finally see you, not your mask, trust deepens.
Teams stop emulating your armor and start daring with their authenticity.
As courage spreads, innovation explodes.
Legacy becomes more than empire; it becomes humanity.
To be clear, this isn’t about you sacrificing something; the research clearly shows that vulnerable, emotionally intelligent leadership leads to higher team trust, intentional risk-taking, and greater organizational innovation and engagement.
This is what I call Encore Leadership: leading from integration, not exile.
Look, I get it, this might seem like a lot, but I promise it’s worth it: Traditional leadership models didn’t prepare us for this level of social and emotional responsibility.
You might even feel it’s not your job to fix society’s problems.
Here’s the thing: It may not be your job, but it is your responsibility!
TL;DR: Wholeness deepens trust, sparks innovation, and creates a legacy rooted in humanity, not performance.
Stay curious, my friend, stay curious…
Let me leave you with this question:
👉 What part of the boy you abandoned is still driving you to the next success (brass-ring) today? And do you have the courage to bring him back into the room?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. The world doesn’t need more armored leaders. It requires leaders who dare to be whole.
Your Move
Brother, the boy you abandoned never disappeared.
He’s there in every deal you chase, every silence you pretend not to hear, every night you wonder why it still feels hollow.
This is where Emotional Source Code™ comes in.
It’s not about fixing you. You’re not broken.
It’s about ending the exile.
It’s about leading as the man who is whole, not the mask that performs.
When you reclaim that boy, you reclaim yourself.
And when you lead from that place, those around you stop copying your armor and start trusting your humanity.
That’s when cultures change.
That’s when belonging is born.
If you know it’s time to stop performing leadership and start living it, the next step is here:
👉 [End the Exile]
