When an identity agreement and organisational culture reinforce one another, the cost can be far greater than anyone realises.
"I am a highly committed person."
Those were among the first words a senior executive used to describe himself during a conversation we had about his leadership.
He went on to explain that whenever a senior person asked for something, he would immediately rearrange his priorities to get it done. Everything else in his life became secondary to delivering on that commitment.
He was understandably proud of this quality; his reputation had been built on being someone others could rely on.
Yet as he continued, he said his professional commitments often came at the expense of commitments he had made to his family.
I was struck by the contradiction.
In the same moment, he described himself as highly committed while simultaneously telling me how often he broke commitments to the people closest to him.
I asked him where else this theme of putting himself last showed up in his life.
The answer, it turned out, was everywhere.
Earlier that year, he had promised himself that he would finally prioritise his health. Instead, he had gained weight, his marriage was under strain, plus he was living with persistent stress and the sense that burnout was never very far away.
Logically, he had plenty of reasons to change. He could already see what his behaviour was costing him. Yet, despite his best intentions, it persisted.
This is where our conversation turned to something I call the identity profit.
Rather than asking whether this behaviour was good for him, I asked what it allowed him to preserve about who he believed himself to be.
He got to be "the dependable one".
The identity profit is the psychological reward of behaving in a way that confirms who we believe we must be to feel recognised, acknowledged, accepted or valuable. It can keep us repeating a behaviour long after we recognise its harmful consequences.
Every time this executive dropped his own priorities to deliver for someone else, he collected another piece of evidence that he was dependable, whether in his professional or personal life. The agreement was still paying him an identity profit, even as the human cost mounted.
At this point, this becomes more than a conversation about one man's personal choices.
This executive works in an exceptionally demanding, high-performance organisation where constant availability is expected and work-life balance gets little consideration.
His identity agreement tells him that, to be recognised, acknowledged, and seen as valuable, he must show up as the dependable one. His organisation reinforces that agreement by expecting and rewarding people who respond immediately, remain available and deliver regardless of the demands being made upon them.
Neither party needs to recognise this arrangement for it to continue consciously.
He receives his identity profit. The organisation receives the performance and availability it has come to expect.
Both incur costs.
We have already discussed the human cost. The organisational cost is often harder to see, particularly while someone continues to deliver.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of 17 studies found that people experiencing clinical burnout performed less well on measures of attention, working memory and executive functioning, the cognitive capabilities leaders rely on to assess risk, make decisions and exercise judgement.
Think of the less visible consequences when those capabilities come under strain: delayed decisions, overlooked risks, costly mistakes, and strategic thinking crowded out by the demands of simply getting through the day. Those costs may never appear on a wellbeing report. In practice, the business absorbs them into everyday operating costs.
All the while, the organisation may keep celebrating that person's extraordinary dedication.
An organisation can end up rewarding the very behaviour that compromises its long-term performance.
A neuroscience lens makes this relationship easier to understand.
Our brains use past experiences and current context to predict what is most likely to happen next. This mechanism shapes how we learn which behaviours bring recognition, belonging, and security, and which might expose us to criticism, rejection, or a threat to our sense of worth.
In my work, I call the often-unexamined internal instructions identity agreements: predictions about who we must be to feel safe, accepted, valued, or competent.
An organisation that repeatedly rewards self-sacrifice can therefore provide fresh evidence to a leader whose identity agreement already connects personal worth with being indispensable.
In a change conversation, the executive does not need another explanation of the importance of boundaries. He knows what his choices are costing him. The real challenge comes when he considers acting differently: saying no or letting someone wait may feel like risking the recognition and value his old behaviour has reliably delivered. That creates enormous internal discomfort.
Knowing what to do differently and being able to do it under pressure are two very different things.
That is where my coaching work with leaders begins. We make the agreement and its identity profit visible, then systematically build the capacity to choose differently when the old response still feels safer.
Organisations face a parallel challenge. Encouraging healthier boundaries while continuing to reward constant availability asks people to change against the very evidence their working environment supplies.
The values displayed on your walls tell people what your organisation aspires to be. The behaviours you consistently reinforce teach people what it actually takes to succeed there.
The brain is paying attention to the second one.
I believe this is an important next frontier in human capital development. We have invested heavily in teaching people strategies, competencies and behaviours. We now need to pay equal attention to the identity agreements that influence whether people can put that learning into practice.
For individuals, this means recognising the identity profit, understanding the human and professional costs, and developing the capacity to act differently without interpreting that change as a loss of worth.
For organisations, it means looking beneath stated values to examine the expectations, leadership decisions and recognition practices that continue to reinforce personal identity agreements. Identifying a cultural contradiction is only a beginning. The deeper work is changing the conditions that keep making the old behaviour the most rewarded choice.
These two areas of work belong together. Supporting individuals without examining organisational reinforcement leaves people fighting their environment. Changing organisational expectations without understanding what they mean for people's identity can leave even well-designed initiatives struggling to take hold. That is where my work with leadership teams begins: making those reinforcements visible so they can finally be changed.
The executive in my conversation does not need to become less committed. He needs to learn that he can remain dependable without abandoning every other commitment in his life.
His organisation needs to decide whether it will keep confusing endless availability with sustainable high performance.
So, I leave you with two questions.
What identity agreement is still paying you an identity profit while extracting a human cost you can no longer justify?
And if you lead people, what is your organisation reinforcing?
If either question has brought something into focus for you, personally or within your organisation, pop me an email. Tell me what you have recognised and what concerns you most about leaving it unchanged. We can explore what addressing it might involve.
Much love,
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