Herminia Ibarra
Senior leaders rarely fail because they lack capability. They fail because the role has changed faster than their sense of who they are. The instinct to double down on the skills that earned the promotion is the instinct that now stalls the transition, and most organisations have no language for helping a leader step into a bigger role while their identity is still catching up.
Herminia Ibarra is a London Business School professor whose research shows senior leaders how to act their way into new roles, identities, and ways of leading when the old playbook has stopped working.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Herminia Ibarra
- She supplies the missing operating manual for executive transitions. Her research names the specific trap, clinging to a proven identity, that causes capable leaders to stall in bigger roles.
- She owns a published, citable framework. “Outsight”, the principle that leaders think their way into new behaviours by acting first, gives a leadership team a shared vocabulary it can actually use on a Monday morning.
- Her HBR article “The Authenticity Paradox” reframed a live boardroom debate. It is one of the few pieces of leadership writing that gives senior teams permission to experiment with styles that do not yet feel like “them”.
- She sits at the top of the field by external measure, not self-description. Fellow of the British Academy, multi-cycle Thinkers50 listee, 2013 Thinkers50 Leadership Award, Charles Handy Chair at LBS.
- She speaks to succession, sponsorship, and women’s advancement with the same empirical grounding, which matters for organisations running serious talent and inclusion agendas rather than performative ones.
Biography highlights
- Charles Handy Professor of Organisational Behaviour, London Business School; prior faculty posts at INSEAD and Harvard Business School.
- Fellow of the British Academy (elected 2019).
- Multi-cycle Thinkers50 ranked thinker; winner of the Thinkers50 Leadership Award, 2013.
- Author of Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader (Harvard Business Review Press) and Working Identity (Harvard Business Press), translated into 16 languages.
- Judge, Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award; member, World Economic Forum Expert Network; Governor of London Business School.
- Ph.D. in Organisational Behaviour, Yale University (National Science Fellow).
Biography
Capable executives often stall in their first genuinely senior role. The research by Herminia Ibarra explains why: they try to think their way into the new job from the inside, when the only reliable route is the opposite. Act first, reflect later, and let the new behaviours gradually reshape how you see yourself.
That argument, captured in her book Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader and in the “outsight” principle, is what most distinguishes her work. Her HBR article “The Authenticity Paradox” extended the case into one of the thorniest topics in executive development, how leaders can experiment with unfamiliar styles without feeling like frauds. Working Identity, her earlier book, has been translated into 16 languages and sits on the Thinkers50 Management Classics list.
Ibarra holds the Charles Handy Chair at London Business School, with prior tenured posts at INSEAD and Harvard Business School. She is a Fellow of the British Academy, a multi-cycle Thinkers50 honoree, winner of the 2013 Thinkers50 Leadership Award, and a Governor of LBS. She also judges the Financial Times Business Book of the Year and sits in the World Economic Forum Expert Network.
For a leadership team wrestling with succession, executive transitions, or the gap between the leader a company has and the leader it now needs, few academics anywhere offer a more precise diagnosis or a more usable set of moves.
Key speaking topics
- Executive transitions and stepping up to bigger roles
- Leadership identity and the authenticity paradox
- Career reinvention and the “outsight” principle
- Leadership in the age of AI
- Sponsorship, succession, and women’s advancement
- Authentic leadership development
- Organisational reinvention under change
Ideal for
- CHROs and chief talent officers redesigning executive development and succession pipelines
- CEOs and boards planning leadership transitions at the top team
- Senior leaders stepping into enterprise-wide or first-time general management roles
- Inclusion, sponsorship, and high-potential programmes for underrepresented senior talent
Audience outcomes
- A clear diagnosis of why smart executives stall in bigger roles and what to do about it
- Language and examples for leading through a change in identity, not just a change in strategy
- A usable principle, “outsight”, that senior leaders can apply to their own weekly calendar
- A sharper view of authenticity that replaces “be yourself” with a more workable standard for growth
- Practical cues for building sponsorship and succession conversations that actually move careers
Talks
A direct look at why the habits that earn a promotion tend to block the one after it, and how senior leaders break the pattern.
Key takeaways:
- Why doing more of what worked is the most common cause of stalled transitions
- The “outsight” principle applied to calendars, relationships, and priorities
- How to rewire a leadership identity before the organisation forces the issue
What changes, and what does not, in leadership craft as AI reshapes judgement, teams, and decision rights.
Key takeaways:
- Where human leadership work becomes more valuable, not less
- How senior leaders build learning loops faster than the technology moves
- The identity shift required to lead teams that include machines
Research-grounded moves for leaders whose next role is not a straight line from their last one.
Key takeaways:
- Why career reinvention fails when it starts with self-analysis
- Small bets, side projects, and networks as the real engine of change
- How organisations can design for reinvention rather than tenure
The difference between mentoring that feels supportive and sponsorship that actually moves careers.
Key takeaways:
- Why most sponsorship programmes underperform
- What sponsors actually do when the system works
- How to build sponsorship into leadership pipelines and inclusion strategies