Leadership development loves a good story.
Few stories are more seductive than Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey: an ordinary person is called to adventure, faces trials, finds mentors, overcomes enemies, and returns transformed, carrying some hard‑won “elixir” of wisdom back to their people.
It’s a powerful narrative. It’s also one that is routinely misused.
In a lot of leadership content, the Hero’s Journey quietly becomes a justification for ego. The leader is cast as the protagonist on a quest for personal success, vindication and achievement. Obstacles exist to prove their grit. Other people exist to be inspired, rescued, or converted.
In these versions, “the return” is not a re‑entry into community with humility and perspective. It’s a re‑entry with enhanced status: bigger title, stronger brand, larger platform. The ego doesn’t get tempered by the journey; it gets supercharged.
Even when we try to soften this, we often don’t go far enough.
A popular twist is to say, “Your people are the heroes; you’re the mentor.” On the surface, this sounds healthier: the leader steps back, the team steps forward. But listen closely to how these stories are told and you’ll often hear a familiar pattern.
The mentor appears at exactly the right moment. They ask the perfect question. They deliver the decisive piece of advice that unlocks the hero’s potential.
The “hero” may be nominally the employee, client, or service recipient. But the person with the real power – the one whose wisdom, sacrifice and timing make everything possible – is still the leader.
It’s a subtler form of the same hero myth. The leader remains the indispensable one.
The risk here isn’t just philosophical. It’s practical.
When we centre a leader as the hero (or the all‑knowing mentor), we quietly teach everyone else to wait. Wait for the vision. Wait for the courage. Wait for the rescue. Initiative becomes something granted, not owned. Capability is something bestowed, not developed.
That’s a primer in learned dependency.
If we take Campbell’s arc seriously, the transformation at the end of the journey isn’t about becoming more exceptional than everyone else. It’s about returning differently oriented to everyone else – less preoccupied with self, more in service to the whole.
In Jungian terms, the point is integration and reconnection, not ascension to special status above the group. In organisational terms, the question becomes: what shifts in a leader’s behaviour when they stop trying to be the hero of every story?
In practice, the answer is usually disappointingly ordinary. Not a grand revelation, but a series of small, persistent choices.
One useful way to look at those choices is through David Rock’s SCARF lens – the idea that people are constantly tracking their sense of Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness at work. A non‑heroic leader treats their own need for status, control and certainty as negotiable, so the people they serve can gain more of each.
That sounds abstract, so here’s how it can look on an ordinary Tuesday:
Status: Letting someone else present the work you quietly shaped behind the scenes – and giving them full credit for it. You step out of the spotlight so they can step into it.
Certainty: Sharing context early, even when you don’t have all the answers, so your team can plan with more information instead of being kept in the dark. You tolerate your own discomfort to reduce theirs.
Autonomy: Offering real choice in how work gets done, instead of “empowerment” that still requires you to bless every decision. You loosen your grip on control so others can strengthen theirs.
Relatedness: Staying present and curious in conflict, rather than retreating into hierarchy or “because I said so.” You choose relationship over being right.
Fairness: Being transparent about trade‑offs and criteria, so decisions feel fair even when they’re hard. You expose your reasoning instead of hiding behind your role.
None of this makes for a dramatic movie plot. There are no dragons. No climactic battle scene where the leader slays the villain and is crowned on the hill.
But this is the work that allows other people to do meaningful, stretching, sometimes heroic things in their own right – without the leader needing to stand in the foreground of every scene.
Russ Laraway’s phrase “when they win, you win” captures this more accurately than most heroic leadership narratives. In his work, the manager’s role is less about charisma and more about three repeatable behaviours: creating clear direction, offering ongoing coaching, and actively supporting people’s career growth.
In that frame, the leader’s success becomes a lagging indicator of the team’s success, not the other way around. Your job is to create conditions where other people can do the best work of their lives – and to accept that some of the most important wins won’t have your name on them.
That’s not how the standard Hero’s Journey for leaders is usually told.
We’re often invited to “follow our bliss” in ways that sound suspiciously like “make your story as big and impressive as possible.” The subtext is individual triumph: be the visionary, the disruptor, the one who saw what no one else could see.
There is nothing wrong with ambition, or with wanting to do work that matters. The problem is when our story about leadership leaves no room for others to matter as much as we do.
The more a leader clings to the hero role, the smaller everyone else has to become.
So perhaps the more interesting leadership journey is not from anonymity to celebrity, or from control to even more control. It’s from central character to supporting cast. From “I must be the hero of this story” to “I’m responsible for the conditions that let better stories unfold for other people.”
In Campbell’s terms, the “return with the elixir” was about bringing something back that transforms the community. In modern organisations, that “elixir” might look less like personal glory and more like systems, habits and cultures that make it safer for others to take risks, speak honestly, and grow.
That’s quieter. It won’t get you a standing ovation at the town hall. But it’s the difference between a leader who needs followers to complete their story, and a leader who helps other people write their own.
Maybe the real test of leadership isn’t how heroic your journey looks from the outside. It’s how many people around you no longer need you to be the hero at all.
References:
Campbell, Joseph. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces (3rd ed.). New World Library.