We often talk about leadership and career change as if they’re tidy, linear stories – moments of clarity, followed by decisive action, rewarded by neat outcomes. Herminia Ibarra has spent her career dismantling that myth.

For her, growth is rarely graceful. It’s awkward, improvised, and deeply human. In her Harvard Business Review essays, she writes about the uneasy space between who we are and who we’re becoming – that middle ground where leaders, careers, and identities are all in flux. “We learn who we have become,” she argues, “by testing fantasy and reality, not by looking inside.”

As the Charles Handy Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School, and before that a leadership luminary at INSEAD, Ibarra has spent two decades studying how people actually change – not on paper, but in practice. Her books Working Identity and Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader have become touchstones for anyone facing professional reinvention. They speak to consultants-turned-founders, executives shifting industries, and managers who suddenly find themselves leading in hybrid, uncertain worlds.

But what makes Ibarra’s work so compelling isn’t just its psychological insight, it’s permission. She gives leaders, professionals, and even whole organizations the license to experiment their way forward. To stop waiting for confidence to arrive, and instead use action – small, imperfect, visible steps as the engine of transformation.

Her philosophy can be distilled into one elegant paradox: you don’t think your way into a new identity; you act your way into one.

The latest in the BlueSky Thinking series, The Influencers lays out Ibarra’s most potent insights – how to lead by doing, how to experiment your way into new identities, and how to handle mid-career reinvention with both courage and strategy.

1. Outsight Over Insight: Act First, Think Later

One of Ibarra’s signature ideas is ‘outsight’ – the notion that effective change comes from new experiences, not just introspection. In Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, she argues that instead of waiting to “feel ready,” you begin to act like a leader in small, risky ways; that generates new perspective, reputation, and belief.

She flips the conventional leadership logic (think -> act) on its head: “The only way to think like a leader is to first act … experiment, connect, plunge yourself into new projects.”

Takeaways:

• Don’t wait for full confidence-step into small leadership experiments now.
• Redesign your current role (projects, responsibilities) to inject “outsight” opportunities.
• Use these experiments to reshape how you see yourself-and let that shift how others see you.

2. Redefine Your Job, Network, and Self Simultaneously

Ibarra is rigorous about the triangle of job, network, self needing reconfiguration during leadership or career leaps. You can’t change one without nudging the others.  

• Redefine your job: Stretch beyond your comfort zone – take on cross-functional tasks or hybrid roles.
• Diversify network: Seek relationships outside your usual circles; bring new perspectives.
• Play with identity: Try out new roles; let a “possible you” emerge rather than rigidly cling to the past.

Ibarra shows that many professionals stall because they cling too tightly to their existing identity. To move forward, you must experiment with parts of identities not fully embraced yet.

3. How to Navigate Career Transitions Without Losing Yourself

In Working Identity, Ibarra explores career reinvention as a process, not a single heroic leap. Transitions, she writes, are often “betwixt and between” states – periods where your professional identity is in flux and the old narrative no longer fits, but the new one hasn’t fully taken shape.

She highlights two core challenges:

• Organisations rarely make space for reinvention. Traditional career paths are linear and rigid. Most workplaces reward continuity and expertise, not exploration. That means when you begin to pivot or experiment with a new direction, the institutional scaffolding around you – performance metrics, job titles, hierarchies – often works against you.
• Losing a familiar professional identity can feel destabilizing. Our roles and reputations are deeply woven into our sense of self. Letting go of a title, an industry, or a community can feel like shedding a layer of who we are before a new one has formed.

Ibarra’s advice: lean into exploration rather than rushing for clarity. Signal your emerging interests early, shift your network outward, and accept that the old and new versions of you will overlap for a while. That in-between space isn’t failure – it’s the creative crucible of reinvention.

4. The Non-Linearity of Change: Forward & Backward Motion

Ibarra frequently reminds us that transitions don’t happen in a straight line. Her LinkedIn posts speak to oscillation, regression, and the “undone middle” of change.  

“The transition moves forward and then falls backward repeatedly, but at some point, if you learn enough along the way, the transition sustains its momentum.’

She also underscores the exploration phase as foundational: you need to try, retract, reorient, and try again before clarity emerges. 

Takeaways:

• Expect setbacks, not failure. They’re part of the process.
• Normalize ambiguity and iteration.
• Keep scanning outward (outsight) even when you’re feeling unsure.

5. Leadership Reimagined: Beyond Authority, Toward Influence

In much of traditional management thinking, leadership is framed as an achievement: a summit reached, a title earned, a reward for years of technical excellence. Herminia Ibarra turns that idea on its head. Leadership, she argues, is not something you possess – it’s something that happens between people. It’s relational, situational, and constantly evolving.

In her Harvard Business Review essay “The Leader as Coach,” Ibarra and co-author Anne Scoular describe how modern leadership is shifting from command-and-control to curiosity and connection. Great leaders, she says, don’t have all the answers; they have better questions. They build trust, not certainty. Their authority is less about the corner office and more about how they listen, frame problems, and help others grow.

This relational view demands presence rather than perfection. It sees influence as fluid – something you earn and re-earn through credibility, empathy, and responsiveness, not hierarchy.

Leadership isn’t a finished identity; it’s an ongoing negotiation between who you are, who others need you to be, and what the moment demands.

Takeaways:

• Leadership is less about me and more about we: it emerges through networks, dialogue, and collaboration.
• Credibility is dynamic. It’s built through curiosity, learning, and the ability to help others see and shape meaning.
• To lead is to stay open – to others, to uncertainty, and to change in yourself.

Your Ibarra-Inspired Transition Framework

Herminia Ibarra’s teachings offer a potent antidote to fixed career paths and introspective paralysis. Her core message is that real change emerges from doing, not waiting for clarity – through network shifts, identity play, job redesign, and embracing the messy in-between.

By acting, experimenting, widening your view, and accepting non-linearity, you shape not just what you do, but who you become.

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