Cracked Pedestals: On Leadership and Disillusionment

Walter McKenzie
Apr 30
5 min read

Dr. Leigh Alley is an Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Maine at Augusta, the designer of the first-ever Masters of Arts Program in Whole Child Education, and the co-founder of xSELeratED. reclaiming the mantel of social-emotional learning in teaching and learning. This multi-talented educator is also the author of the Shiny Friends Super Squad children's book series.

I’m just going to say it: someone I trusted deeply let me down last week, and, oh, it hurts. Does it ever hurt.

It’s a keen kind of devastation that occurs when someone we once admired - implicitly, almost reverently - reveals themself to be human. Not in the soft, forgivable ways that we all are, but in ways that crack the very pedestal upon which we had placed them. It’s a fracture not just in our perception of them, but in our understanding of leadership, mentorship, relationship, and sometimes the sense of our own good judgment.

For many of us in education, esteem is not given lightly or even readily. We are trained to question, to critique, to resist the countless facile narratives

we are fed. So when we do grant our respect - when we look at a colleague,

a leader, a thinker, and say, “There is someone worth following” - it is a profound act of trust.

And it can be so profoundly, devastatingly disorienting when our trust is compromised.

The Paradox of Disillusionment

Disillusionment is, paradoxically, an act of seeing more clearly. Our illusion dissolves, and with it disappears the comfort, even if false, that our illusion once provided. What remains in place of the illusion often is an aching recognition of smallness. Of ambition untethered from principle. Of ego cloaked as conviction. Of strategic omission. The list is long.

It’s easy to feel foolish in the wake of such a realization. But foolishness implies a kind of naïveté, and I want to offer a counter-narrative: you were not naïve for believing. You saw what you hoped leadership could be - and perhaps what it should be - and you dared to respond to that vision.

An Opportunity for Inner Work

So how do we cope when the person we looked to for guidance, inspiration, or alignment falls short?

Allow space for grief, not just anger. Anger is seductive. It can feel like direction. It can even masquerade as agency. But beneath anger often lies grief - grief for the mentor we thought we had, the values we thought were shared, the time and emotional labor we invested. (And in education, there is so much emotional labor.) Grief is quieter than anger. It needs to be acknowledged, but it won’t shout, demanding that acknowledgment. More often, it asks in a whisper. When it asks, we should honor it. We might write about it or talk to others who may feel similarly. Whatever we do, we should make space for it, and as we make space, we need to remember that grieving is a process. Grief takes time.
Recognize the flawed humanity in others without excusing harm done. A man I admire ardently taught me that everything is relative. But this is not a call to relativize. Some actions have real consequences and demand accountability. Period. But it is helpful, if only for our own peace, to remember that even the people we put on pedestals are navigating their own insecurities, ambitions, and blind spots. They are human. We can name harm and disappointment without reducing people to their worst moments. That man I ardently admire was plenty human. His faults remind me that I am human, too, with plenty of my own frailties and shortcomings. His faults make me cognizant of my own pedestal - remind me to contemplate my worthiness of it, my footing on it. The reminder is a gift.
Follow your own compass. One of the unexpected gifts of disillusionment is that it forces us to reassess the source of our own sense of direction. When external beacons falter, as they do and periodically will, we must look inward. What are the values that undergird our own work? What kind of leadership do we want to model, down to the smallest and quietest of ways? What are our non-negotiables? In this sense, contemplating these things, the absence of a reliable leader can become an invitation to answer our own calling to be a beacon to others.
Connect with a community of the like-minded and like-hearted. Disillusionment can feel isolating. But we are rarely the only ones who see what we see. We should reach out and speak honestly. Find those who share our concerns and our hopes – the like-minded, and, as I always underscore, the like-hearted. We can find incredible strength in each other in times of tumult, especially at junctures when the people, structures, or hierarchies we’ve trusted in disappoint.

Steady as We Go

From time to time, a motto from Romain Rolland springs unbidden to my mind: “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” It’s so easy to become cynical when our heroes falter. But cynicism is a form of surrender. Instead, let us charge forward in pursuit of clear-eyed, eyes-wide-open hope. A hope that acknowledges complexity. A hope that holds space for imperfection without capitulating to it.

Once disillusioned, you are still allowed to believe in others’ leadership. It is important that you do. But perhaps out the other side of disillusionment is belief in leadership of a different kind. A variety that is better distributed, humbler, more accountable. Leadership that listens. Leadership that invites others’ voices, their vision, their presence, their gifts. Leadership that unleashes everyone.

The pedestal your hero stood on may have cracked. But the ground beneath your own feet remains firm. Trust it. Walk boldly alongside trusted friends down the path of your own leadership, opening, even now, on the horizon. I’ll meet you there.

Here are ten reflective questions inviting introspection, accountability, and grounded leadership as we stand on pedestals of our own:

Whose esteem do I unconsciously seek, and how does that shape my choices?
Am I leading from a place of principle or performance?
Do I make space for dissent, or do I quietly reward agreement?
When have I failed to live up to my own values, and how did I respond?
Do I acknowledge the leadership contributions of others, or do I center my own?
How do I handle the weight of others’ admiration or expectations?
Do I react reflexively and defensively when others challenge me?
What am I modeling to those who look to the example of my behavior?
Where does my leadership end and my ego begin?
Do I cultivate trust in others’ compasses, or do I ask them to borrow mine?