Leading from Your Wounds: Why Your Old Patterns Still Show Up at Work
Let’s cut the crap: leadership isn’t clean. Especially when you're the one holding vision for a team, navigating conflict, managing people, and trying not to implode from your own unprocessed shit. (Oh hey, fellow over-functioners 👋)
In a recent episode of the Culture Focused Practice Podcast, I dropped into one of my favorite formats: the Owner’s Room. No planning. No scripts. Just me, wrestling with what it really looks like to lead while still healing.
Here’s the thing most leadership podcasts won’t tell you: you don’t stop being a human when you become a boss.
Your old stuff comes with you.
For me? It looks like emotional caretaking. Invisibility wounds. Not-enoughness. It looks like shrinking when I should be standing tall. Over-explaining to avoid pushback. Softening a clear initiative because I don’t want to feel rejected.
Sound familiar?
The episode walks through five reflection questions I regularly use to check my own patterns. One of the biggest insights? Most of these behaviors didn’t start in leadership—they’ve always been there. Leadership just turned up the volume.
And the cost? Honestly, it’s often financial. Paying people too long, avoiding hard pivots, over-investing in harmony instead of outcomes. But there’s also a gain: emotional clarity, growth, the ability to actually name what’s going on so I can choose how I show up.
I closed the episode with a real scenario many leaders will recognize: team resistance to a new initiative. Blank stares. Passive pushback. The subtle but unmistakable vibe of “meh.” And instead of leading it through, I fell into my old pattern—backpedaling, softening, appeasing.
That kind of moment is gold if you’re willing to examine it. Not because it’s fun. (It’s not.) But because it shows you exactly where your leadership still needs your attention.
My takeaway? Leading from your wounds isn’t failure. It’s human. But recognizing it—and choosing to lead from something more grounded—is the work.
If this resonates, you’re not alone. And you don’t have to figure it all out solo. That’s exactly why I created Inside the Living Practice—a space for group practice leaders who want to build something sustainable, honest, and aligned with who they actually are.
Come join us. The messy middle is welcome here.
👉 www.taravossenkemper.com/the-membership
#LeadershipWounds #EmotionalCaretaking #PracticeOwnership #InsideTheLivingPractice
About the Author
Dr. Tara Vossenkemper is a gently-candid consultant who’s been in the trenches of group practice ownership since 2017. With a hearty blend of depth, irreverence, and a solid dash of humor (or so she hopes), Tara helps practice owners navigate the can-be-messy process of hiring, culture-building, vision generating, people-y issues, and all the other things that keep you up at night. When she’s not consulting, she’s probably wrangling her animals or homeschooling her kids—because why not add more chaos to the mix?
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