When Being Excellent Still Isn't Enough

Vision Leadership for Life Newsletter

Dominic George
May 31, 2025

When Being Excellent Still Isn’t Enough

You’ve done everything “right.” You earned the degrees. You showed up early. You stayed late. You took the lead, volunteered for the tough assignments, and somehow managed to keep your personal battles off the clock.

You became excellent.

But one day, you look around and realize excellence didn’t open every door like you thought it would. You’re still being questioned. Still being overlooked. Still being asked to prove, explain, justify, and defend.

For Black men in leadership, this moment is very personal and painfully familiar. It’s the moment we realize that excellence is often not the currency of elevation. Visibility, proximity, and politics are.

And so the question becomes, what now?

If being excellent still isn’t enough, then what do we do?

Let’s go there.

What happens when your brilliance becomes a burden? Let’s break down the cost of being “exceptional” in a system not designed to affirm you.

You become the ‘go-to’ without the title.
You lead projects, fix crises, mentor new hires, but they call it “team player” instead of “leadership.” Your labor is leaned on, not leveraged.
You overcompensate for others’ discomfort.
You read the room constantly. You shrink when you should shine. You modulate your tone, attire, and brilliance to feel “safe” to others. That’s emotional labor no one pays you for.
You live in constant performance.
You perform safety. You perform stability. You perform excellence not because you want to impress, but because you’re afraid of being erased.
You question yourself.
Even when you know you’re right. Even when your track record says you’re capable. You wonder if you’re just “expecting too much.” You start internalizing their denial as your deficit.

Excellence is NOT the problem. But it’s also not the solution. And let’s be clear, I am not anti-excellence. I am anti-burden.

Excellence should be your liberation, not your leash. But that only happens when you:

Align your excellence with your values, not their validation
Use your excellence to build power, not just perform for approval
Own your excellence as a launchpad, not a life sentence

When excellence is your strategy for worthiness, it will never be enough.
When excellence is your expression of purpose, it becomes unstoppable.

So the shift is this: no
Stop trying to earn your way into broken rooms. Start building your own table.

ADVICE TIP FOR BLACK MEN: Stop Over-Proving. Start Positioning:

Advice: You do not need to keep earning your right to lead through over-performance or excessive credentials. Your excellence is already evident. Continuing to “prove” yourself can actually become a trap that keeps you stagnant and unseen.

Solution Shift:

Build a positioning statement that clearly defines your unique leadership value.
Articulate not just what you do, but why it matters, and how it transforms teams or outcomes. Start using this statement in meetings, bios, and personal branding platforms like LinkedIn. Let your excellence introduce you, not exhaust you.

Additional Tip for Black Men: Don’t Shrink. Shift the Room.

Advice: You’ve been reading the room for years, modifying your brilliance to make others comfortable. That silence? It’s costing you power and peace. True leadership isn’t about fitting in. It’s about shifting what’s possible around you.

Solution Shift:
Pick one space this week, a meeting, a panel, a check-in and practice showing up unmuted. Share your opinion without filtering. Name what needs to be said. Your authenticity is not a threat, it’s your edge.

The Real Strategy: Visibility + Voice + Vision

If excellence is your foundation, then let these be your next three pillars:

Visibility:

People can’t celebrate what they can’t see. So, stop hiding behind humility. Speak your wins. Publish your thought leadership. Let your face and frame be known. This is not arrogance. This is equity.

Affirmation: “I will no longer be invisible in rooms I built.”

Voice:

Silence is not strategy. Use your voice to name what’s not working. Use your influence to push for new norms. And if that makes people uncomfortable? Let it. That’s the cost of transformation.

Affirmation: “My voice is not too much. It is necessary.”

Vision:

You weren’t meant to just climb ladders. You were meant to build bridges.
Think beyond the title. Think legacy. What systems will you reshape? What culture will you leave behind? What future will you make more possible?

Affirmation: “I am not here to fit in. I am here to shift what’s possible.”

Coaching Insight: If it feels heavy, it’s not leadership. It’s labor.

Leadership should stretch you, not suppress you. It should challenge you, not deplete you. So if you’re feeling like:

You’re constantly doing but rarely recognized
You’re surrounded by meetings but never heard
You’re tired of smiling while silent

Then I want to offer you this: You’re not broken. The system is. And the work ahead is not to become more excellent. It’s to become more aligned. More embodied. More free. Now, some of you may state, that’s great in theory, but what do I do when I’ve hit the ceiling (again)?

What happens when you’ve been excellent and they still don't see you?

Here’s your four-part strategy from Vision Leadership for LIFE™:

1. Stop Over-Proving

You don’t need to keep adding certifications, degrees, or titles to be worthy. Start shifting from proving to positioning. Your results speak louder than credentials.

2. Audit the Room

Are you in a room that’s structured for your growth or for your silence? If you keep hitting the same ceiling, you’re not the problem. The structure is.

Start making strategic exits when alignment no longer exists.

3. Define Your Own Metrics

Don’t let them grade you by their limited rubric. Define your own success.

Legacy over likability.
Impact over impressions.
Peace over proximity to power.

4. Build Your Leadership Identity

Join communities that affirm your purpose. Hire a coach. Study your patterns. Unlearn the need for perfection. Build a leadership identity that is rooted in who you are, not just what you do.

ADVICE TIP FOR BLACK MEN: Audit the Room. Not Just Your Performance.

Advice: Many Black leaders hit the ceiling and blame themselves. But sometimes the room you’re in was never designed for your rise. Stop fixing what isn’t broken, you. Start evaluating the environment instead.

Solution Shift:
Ask this weekly reflection question: “Is this room built for my growth or for my compliance?”

If the answer is unclear or consistently “no,” begin identifying new spaces, communities, organizations, or networks, that are aligned with your vision and values.

Leadership thrives in alignment, not just achievement.

Additional Tip for Black Men: Trade Humility for Visibility.

Advice: You’ve been conditioned to let your work speak for itself. But silence doesn’t scale. Visibility is not ego, it’s equity. If they can’t see you, they won’t value you. It’s time to stop hiding behind your humility.

Solution Shift:
Post one professional win this week, big or small, on a platform like LinkedIn or in an internal team space. Name the impact. Claim your space. Visibility is how you reclaim authorship of your own narrative.

Closing Thoughts:

In summary, my story is your story: I was excellent too. Until I decided to be free.

I was that brother.
Running the programs. Raising the funds.
Holding the team. Executing on every single thing in sight.

I thought if I just keep showing up, someone would tap me for the next level. But the truth was: I had already outgrown the system.

So I stopped waiting.

I launched Vision Leadership for LIFE to help other Black men stop performing and start leading without losing themselves.

And now I coach executives, elevate organizations, and help Black men shift from impossible to possible every day.

So if you’re reading this and feeling tired, unseen, or stuck, know this: You don’t have to hustle for visibility anymore. You have to own your voice and strategize your value.

That’s the new path forward.

Subscribe to the Vision Leadership for LIFE newsletter now for early access, if you want the insider guidebook before it drops, exclusive insights, and first access when pre-orders go live.

Fellas, your journey is both unique and powerful. If you’re ready to start leading from your authentic edge, then your on the roadmap for greatness. When you’re leading from within, you are not only advancing your career but also paving the way for future leaders.

Feel free to reach out for personalized coaching or share your success stories.

Your success is our shared triumph.

Real Talk: If you’re ready to:

Reclaim your voice in high-stakes spaces.
Lead with strategy, not survival.
Build a legacy that doesn’t require you to perform to belong.

You don’t have to lose yourself to lead. You just have to reclaim who you are, and lead from there.

Have a POWERFUL Day!

Dominic George

Founder, Vision Leadership for LIFE, LLC

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© 2025 Vision Leadership for LIFE, LLC. All rights reserved.
The content, concepts, and original expressions in this newsletter are the exclusive intellectual property of Dominic George and Vision Leadership for LIFE, LLC. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without prior written permission. This newsletter is intended for personal development and leadership growth. Respect the work. Honor the source.

The Authentic Edge™ framework and related materials are proprietary to Vision Leadership for LIFE, LLC.