Title Inflation: The Leadership Crisis

Somewhere along the way, leadership stopped being a role earned through responsibility and became a title people aspire to collect. Scroll through LinkedIn long enough and you will find an ecosystem of founders, thought leaders, advisors, visionaries, and CEOs—sometimes attached to organisations barely large enough to require a leadership structure in the first place.

A solo consultant becomes the CEO of a one-person company.

A freelancer with a registered entity becomes CEO and founder.

The title has spread so widely that it has begun to lose meaning, but the issue isn’t the title itself. The issue is what happens to leadership when the symbol of it becomes easier to claim over its actual responsibility.

Traditionally, the title Chief Executive Officer represented the highest operational authority in an organisation—the person responsible for strategy, decisions, and ultimately the success or failure of the company.

It implied several things:

• The presence of an organisation with multiple executives

• Accountability to a board or stakeholders

• Responsibility for long-term direction

• Authority to make final decisions

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In other words, the CEO wasn’t just the leader, but where the buck stopped.

That weight of responsibility still exists in large organisations today, but in the modern startup and creator economy, the title has become increasingly symbolic rather than structural.

Across societies and institutions, leadership tended to emerge with time: through experience, exposure to consequence, and the gradual accumulation of judgement.

There is a reason for that.

Leadership is executive function under pressure

The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for executive function (planning, impulse control, decision-making, and long-term judgement) does not fully develop until a person’s mid-twenties.

This matters.

Because leadership, at its core, is the practice of executive function under pressure. It requires the ability to:

• weigh competing priorities

• regulate emotion in high-stakes situations

• anticipate consequences

• maintain long-term direction while navigating short-term chaos

In other words, the very cognitive capacities that leadership depends on are still stabilising through a person’s twenties. This does not mean young people cannot lead.

But it does mean that holding responsibility demands more than enthusiasm or ideas.

It demands the maturity of judgement.

Leadership is not simply about vision. It carries a form of cognitive and emotional weight and it's about responsibility with consequences. It means making decisions where there is no perfect option, where the consequences will affect other people’s livelihoods and where the outcome may not be known for months or years.

Modern work culture sometimes forgets that judgement matures through exposure to consequence. Experience forces a person to:

• see second and third order effects

• recognise patterns that theory alone cannot teach

• learn the cost of decisions that looked right at the time

What is in a title?

The danger of title inflation

The modern startup and creator economy has created incredible opportunities, but it has also accelerated title inflation which distorts the developmental pathway of leadership itself.

Leadership used to unfold through stages as a person might first manage projects, then people, then departments, then strategy, each layer introducing new forms of responsibility and consequence.

This progression is not simply hierarchical, it is cognitive. Each stage required broader situational awareness, longer time horizons, and more complex decision-making.

When someone adopts a leadership title too early, that progression can collapse.

The external identity of leadership appears before the internal capabilities have had time to mature creating a subtle but dangerous pressure to perform leadership, before the judgement required for it has fully developed. And when that happens, organisations and the people inside them end up paying the price because they have to spend more time stabilising the leader than executing the work.

Title inflation does not only affect individuals, it also changes how organisations function.

Title proliferation without corresponding responsibility, lead to several patterns:

Decision-making becomes fragmented. Too many “leaders” competing for influence can dilute clarity around who ultimately holds accountability.

Accountability becomes ambiguous. If everyone carries a leadership title, it becomes harder to determine where responsibility actually sits when outcomes fall short.

Authority becomes performative. Instead of authority emerging from responsibility and trust, it becomes tied to visibility, confidence, or personal branding.

Operational competence gets undervalued. People who are excellent operators, builders, and managers may feel pressure to pursue leadership titles even when their greatest value lies in execution.

The result is an organisational environment where leadership becomes aspirational rather than functional.

My own lessons from making manager before I was ready

I say this with humility because I too was once a young manager. And in hindsight, I can recognise that I had much to learn. Where I struggled most was emotional regulation. I had not yet developed the maturity required to manage difficult situations without taking them personally.

But there were a few non-negotiables that shaped how my supervisors saw my potential;

• I always kept time. If you’re on time, you are late.

• I delivered what I said I would, when I said I would.

• I prepared before asking others to act.

  
  

These behaviours suggested that I was reliable, and reliability creates trust (inspite of how imperfect the person is). Trust is what allows more experienced leaders to give younger ones room to grow because they feel safe investing in them. These same non-negotiables are the standards I hold myself to now in my freelance work. They are also the standards my clients experience when they work with me.

With age, motherhood, and decades of navigating complex environments, my executive functions—and emotional intelligence—are far more developed than they were in my twenties.

Respect for time, clarity, and preparation is not negotiable in leadership and when those traits are absent, it usually reflects something deeper about how responsibility is perceived. And leadership without responsibility is simply false branding.

The non-negotiables of leadership

Regardless of industry, company size, or title, leadership tends to rely on a set of cognitive and behavioural foundations. These are the non-negotiables:

1. They are dependable.

2. They respect time.

3. They communicate clearly.

4. They do the unglamorous work of preparation.

5. They make decisions when needed (as hard or conflicting as they may be).

6. They hold themselves accountable before holding others accountable.

These may not be charismatic behaviours, but they are stabilising and stability is what allows creativity and innovation to flourish safely.

Perhaps the more useful question is not: “How do I become a CEO?”

But rather: “Am I prepared to carry the weight of leadership?”

Because leadership is less about standing at the front of the room and more about holding the responsibility when things go wrong.