Karin Wellbrock

Leadership Coach

Karin Wellbrock

Karin Wellbrock is Partner and Head of Leadership Effectiveness at Kay Group K.K. in Tokyo. After two decades as a global management consultant, she now dedicates her work to coaching senior leaders—especially women—through the transition from competence-driven careers to high-impact leadership. Karin works across Japanese and international organizations, guiding executives to bring more range, presence, and confidence to the moments that matter most. She collaborates directly with outstanding women leaders, supporting them in stepping into bigger roles with clarity and authority.

She can be reached at kaygroup-asia.com or [email protected]

The New Rules of Leading as a Woman: Why the habits that got you promoted won’t make you successful at the top

The Moment Everything Shifts

There is a moment in many women’s careers—quiet, surprising, and unsettling—when the leadership equation abruptly stops making sense. It often happens in a meeting where the stakes are high and the room is full. A woman who has spent two decades proving her competence presents her recommendation. Her analysis is airtight. Her logic is impeccable. Her track record speaks for itself. And yet, the conversation continues as if she were never the one speaking. Decisions move on. The meeting ends. She leaves wondering how she could have done everything right and still gone unheard.

It’s not that people doubt her capability. They respect her. They rely on her. They trust her to deliver. But respect is not the same as influence—and many women discover this only when they step into senior roles. They realize, often suddenly, that the behaviors that carried them confidently through the earlier chapters of their careers now hold them back. The rules have shifted, and no one sent out a memo.

This is not a crisis of ability. It’s a shift in identity. And it’s one women everywhere confront, no matter what industry or geography they operate in.

The Early-Career Edit: How Women Narrow Themselves to Succeed

From their very first roles, women learn—explicitly and implicitly—that the safest way to be taken seriously is to edit themselves down.

They remove anything that could be misinterpreted, misread, or weaponized against them. They learn to speak in carefully measured tones. They limit visible emotion. They guard against taking up too much space. They trade color for control.

This narrowing isn’t insecurity; it’s strategy. In male-dominated environments, women quickly understand that a single misstep is remembered longer than a thousand quiet successes. So they compensate. They over-prepare. They become diligent, meticulous, reliable—experts who never drop a ball and rarely reveal a crack. Their professionalism becomes not just a behavior, but a form of armor.

And it works.
Organizations reward steadiness. Managers trust the colleague who always delivers. Expertise becomes the ticket to promotion, and many women rise precisely because they mastered the discipline of being the most competent person in the room.

What no one tells them is that the very success they are building comes with a hidden cost: a narrowed range of expression that becomes so habitual, they no longer notice it. The edit that once protected them becomes part of their identity.

The Leadership Mismatch: When the Old Formula Stops Working

Senior leadership, however, runs on a different currency. At higher levels, the job is no longer to perfect the work—it is to shape the narrative, influence the direction, and mobilize people through uncertainty. Precision matters, of course, but it is no longer the differentiator. Leaders must radiate vision, create emotional clarity, and generate momentum. People don’t simply listen to them; they feel them.

This is where the early-career edit begins to break down.

Organizational psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic captures the root of this shift in his work on identity and reputation. Identity is who we believe ourselves to be. Reputation is who others experience. For years, many women define their identity around being accurate, prepared, and composed. But if others experience them as distant, cautious, or muted—however unfairly—then their leadership impact is constrained.

This is not a failure of authenticity. It’s a mismatch between the identity that once ensured success and the reputation now required to lead effectively.

Competence earns respect.
But leadership requires resonance.

When women continue leading with the monochrome professionalism that once protected them, they risk becoming technically strong but emotionally invisible. Their organizations admire them but do not always feel led by them. And without that felt connection, influence remains elusive.

The Technicolor Shift: What Leadership Actually Demands

True leadership requires bringing back the parts of yourself that the early-career edit pushed into the background. The world doesn’t need more grayscale professionals—it needs leaders who show dimension, humanity, and emotional range. Leaders who can project warmth without losing authority. Leaders who can show conviction without being labeled “too much.” Leaders who can communicate energy, not just expertise.

This is what I call Technicolor Leadership—not loud, not dramatic, not performative, but fully dimensional. It is leadership rooted in presence, not perfection.

Women often assume that expanding their expression will dilute their gravitas. But the opposite is true. People trust leaders who are human. They follow leaders who let some edges show. They connect with leaders whose personality comes through—not as entertainment, but as emotional clarity. Bringing out technicolor doesn’t mean adding new traits; it means allowing more of who you are to be seen, strategically and intentionally.

In my coaching work with women across APAC and beyond, I see this shift play out with remarkable consistency. In hierarchical cultures like Japan, women often suppress warmth and enthusiasm to be perceived as credible. In egalitarian cultures across Europe, they may moderate passion to avoid overshadowing the group. In the US, they navigate the narrow band between being assertive and being “too assertive.” Each context shapes the edit differently, but the effect is the same: women learn to hold back the very qualities that signal leadership.

Technicolor leadership is the process of re-expanding that range. It is not about discarding the professionalism that served them—it is about adding the color that leadership requires.

Editing as Expansion, Not Masking

The word “edit” often implies reduction, but in leadership, editing is an act of expansion. It is not about erasing parts of yourself; it is about choosing what to bring forward so your leadership lands with clarity and intention.

Women are often told to be “authentic,” but authenticity rooted in an earlier career stage becomes a trap. The quiet, composed identity that felt authentic at 25 is no longer the identity that serves them at 45. People evolve. Roles evolve. Expectations evolve. Authenticity must evolve with them.

Senior women frequently tell me, “I’m not sure who I am supposed to be anymore.” But the truth is that leadership doesn’t ask them to become someone else. It asks them to become more of themselves—the parts they once sidelined for safety, now brought back because the role demands it.

Editing becomes the intentional process of deciding:
What does this moment require from me? Which version of myself will create the impact I want?

It’s not an act of self-erasure.
It’s an act of self-design.

The Call to Technicolor Leadership

The women who thrive at senior levels are not the ones who cling to the identity that made them successful early on. They are the ones willing to expand their repertoire, reclaim their color, and lead with a fuller emotional bandwidth. They learn that leadership requires visibility—not the self-promotional kind, but the human kind. They discover that people follow their energy more than their expertise. They stop relying on competence to speak for them and start using their presence to speak for itself.

Leadership is no longer about being the most controlled person in the room. It is about being the most felt.

And the truth is this:
You never lost your technicolor.
You simply set it aside while building the expertise the world demanded first.
Now, as you step into bigger leadership, it’s time to bring it back—with intention, wisdom, and range.

Because organizations don’t need more grayscale experts.
They need leaders who can create clarity, connection, and momentum.
They need the full spectrum.
They need leaders in technicolor.