Well-Being as Identity, Not Resolution

By: CeCe President

Why who we are shapes what our people experience

I have led teams with the same ambition, the same work ethic, and the same desire to do right by people, and I have produced two completely different realities.

In one season, people around me carried stress they did not deserve to carry. The work felt heavier than it needed to feel. Boundaries blurred. Energy drained faster than it recovered.

In another season, people took real time away, returned more grounded, and stayed committed. The work was still demanding, but it felt more human. More sustainable. More whole.

For a long time, I assumed the difference was strategy. Better tools. Better plans. Better time management.

The truth was simpler and harder to admit.

The difference was who I was being.

Most people know what it feels like to work for a leader who has not yet clarified who they are being, even if they do not have the language to name it. It shows up in the smallest patterns.

How the leader relates to their own energy.

How they make decisions under pressure.

How they set boundaries or ignore them.

How they define success.

How they recover.

How they stay whole.

Two people understand the difference in those patterns in me better than anyone else: Lisa Bergmann and Junaid Malik.

When identity is unclear, leadership feels heavy

Lisa started working with me in 2013. Just thirty-six months earlier, I had lost my first business and was carrying the weight of nearly two million dollars in debt. I rebuilt relatively quickly, so on paper, I was running a thriving, high-performing IT consulting company. Inside, I was still very much in survival mode.

Lisa joined that business and then made an even bigger leap with me. She transitioned alongside me as I left the safety of a well-paying operation to pursue what many would have considered a risky, uncertain path toward becoming an international speaker. There was instability everywhere, and I was leading from unresolved trauma and constant urgency.

I was a terrible leader to her.

I was short, reactive, and inconsistent. I had no real boundaries, and I expected constant availability. I worked at all hours and expected her to do the same. I cared for Lisa very much, and yet I brought my unprocessed fear, urgency, and self-judgment into every interaction.

The way I treated Lisa was a direct reflection of how I was treating myself.

Over time, the stress took a toll. Lisa began experiencing health challenges and eventually took two months away from work. During that time, something became clear to her. The relief she felt while she was gone was real, and returning to the same environment would likely bring the same stress back into her life. She never came back.

Her decision was understandable. And it taught me something I could not ignore.

When identity is grounded, leadership feels different

Years later, I hired Junaid Malik as our first full-time team member at Presidential

Consultants. By then, something fundamental in me had changed.

In the five to six years between Lisa and Junaid, I had done deep work. Not on productivity or performance, but on identity. I had spent time clarifying who I wanted to be as a person, how I wanted people to experience my energy, and what sustainability truly meant to me.

With Junaid, I showed up differently.

I asked questions.

I set boundaries and honored them.

When additional work was needed, it was discussed and agreed upon.

When pressure showed up, my decisions were steadier and more grounded.

The difference was not the role or the workload. The difference was who I had become.

Junaid, who is from Pakistan, experienced something that remains uncommon in many workplaces in his context. When he excitedly shared that he was becoming a dad for the first time, we talked openly about wholeness, fatherhood, and values beyond performance. We explored what it would look like for him to take real time to bond with his son in those first weeks, and why that presence mattered for his child, for the man he wanted to be in his family, and for the leader he wanted to be on his team.

He took two months off to bond with his firstborn son.

When Junaid returned, he came back energized, grateful, and deeply committed. Our working relationship strengthened. His sense of ownership grew. The culture around us reinforced a powerful truth. People can give fully without being depleted.

Junaid recently celebrated his four-year anniversary with Presidential Consultants.

Lisa and Junaid’s journeys ran parallel in important ways. Both invested years working closely with me. Both were capable, committed, and deeply engaged in the work. Both stepped away for two months at critical moments. Their outcomes, however, were completely different because the leader they experienced was different.

The only thing that changed was me.

Why behavior-based well-being does not last

That realization fundamentally changed how I understand well-being at work. Well-being is about how people experience work over time. It shows up in whether they can sustain energy, make clear decisions, and remain connected to themselves and their purpose while meeting expectations.

The difference between Lisa and Junaid was not effort, talent, or commitment. It was the environment they returned to, shaped by leadership identity long before any policy, program, or benefit came into play.

This is where many well-being efforts at work fall short.

Organizations often try to support well-being through behaviors. Encouraging breaks. Offering resources. Promoting balance. These efforts are often well intentioned, and they can help. But they cannot carry the full weight of culture.

Culture is built through what leaders consistently model, reward, allow, and interrupt. People watch how leaders respond under pressure. They pay attention to whose needs get honored and whose get deferred. Over time, they learn whether wholeness is truly protected or quietly traded for performance.

People do not live in alignment with what they are told to value. They live in alignment with what they see modeled.

Well-being lives in identity

When well-being is treated as an identity, something shifts.

Leaders stop asking only, “What should I do?”

They begin asking, “Who am I committed to being?”

That question changes how expectations are set.

It changes how decisions are made under pressure.

It changes how boundaries are honored.

It changes what success looks like when things get hard.

Well-being anchored in purpose and sustainability comes from aligning how we lead with who we say we are.

Purpose answers why the work matters.

Sustainability answers how we continue without losing ourselves.

When those two are anchored, well-being stops being something people chase and becomes something people experience.

Creating workplaces that support wholeness

Leaders shape identity environments every day, often without realizing it.

Every meeting.

Every reaction.

Every expectation.

Every boundary kept or crossed.

These moments teach people who they are allowed to be at work.

Like Junaid, people stay in environments where they can contribute fully and remain whole.

Like Lisa, people leave environments that require self-abandonment to succeed.

Leadership rarely changes because of resolutions. It changes when leaders get honest about who they are being. When “I will do better” gives way to “I am someone who leads with clarity, care, and sustainability,” the workplace begins to shift.

The most meaningful leadership work is not deciding what you will try to do differently. It is deciding who you are committed to being and allowing that identity to shape how you lead, especially when pressure shows up. When leaders anchor well-being in identity, they change how people experience work and how long they choose to stay.

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Entrepreneur and international speaker CeCe President is the creator of Be BOLD Enough: A Service-Based Leadership Development System. She empowers passionate leaders with the coaching, confidence, and clarity they need to create massive impact and serve customers at the highest levels.

CeCe holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the City University of New York. With over two decades of experience leading public, private, and non-profit organizations, CeCe is a sought-after consultant, speaker, and leadership coach whose work changes lives and reshapes organizations.

CeCe is an avid volunteer, outspoken advocate, and committed donor to various causes. Among the many ways she serves her community is as a board member for Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northeast Ohio, Greater Cleveland Partnership, and COSE, Cleveland’s small business Chamber of Commerce. CeCe and her husband, company founder Anthony President, are both native Clevelanders and proud alumni of John Carroll University.