What an Identity Crisis Taught Me About Leadership in Travel and Hospitality

There are more than one billion people on LinkedIn.
Only about 1% post.

A few years ago, I became part of that 1%.
Not because I wanted to build a personal brand.
But because I had just lost the identity I had built my entire career around.

On March 30, 2022, I walked out of an office I had called home for 14 years. After a global restructuring following COVID, the role I had been performing no longer existed.

At the time, I thought I was simply leaving a job.
What I didn’t realize was that I was also leaving behind the title that had quietly become my identity.

For someone who had climbed from the German countryside to a CEO role in Miami, this wasn’t just a professional transition. It was an identity shock.

And like many high-performing professionals -- especially women in leadership -- I initially responded the only way I knew how: by trying to fix it quickly.

New projects.
New opportunities.
New distractions.

But nothing seemed to resolve the discomfort.

Eventually, I realized something important:

I wasn’t broken.
I was having an identity crisis.

And that realization changed everything.

Because when you believe something is broken, you try to repair it as quickly as possible. But when you realize you’re questioning your identity, you begin asking a different question:

Who am I becoming?

That question is uncomfortable -- but it can also be incredibly clarifying.

Over the following months, I started speaking openly about this experience. I shared my reflections on LinkedIn and began having conversations with leaders across industries about identity transitions.

I expected a few polite reactions.

Instead, I received dozens of messages saying the same thing:

“Thank you for saying this out loud.”

Many were from senior leaders—successful, accomplished, respected. Yet they, too, had experienced moments when their title changed, their role shifted or their life circumstances forced them to rethink who they were.

Through those conversations, three lessons became very clear.

1. You Don’t Need to Leave Your Life to Transform It

When people talk about reinvention, we often imagine dramatic change.

A new country.
A new career.
A complete life reset.

Popular culture reinforces this narrative. We see stories of people leaving everything behind to “find themselves.”

But transformation doesn’t always require escape.

In my case, there was no yoga retreat in Bali. No dramatic life overhaul. Instead, the real work happened much closer to home.

It happened through journaling.
Through coaching conversations.
Through revisiting what truly energizes me rather than what simply looks impressive on paper.

Transformation, I learned, doesn’t always ask you to leave your life.
Sometimes it asks you to stay -- and grow inside it.

For leaders in travel and hospitality, where careers are often built around constant motion, this realization can be powerful. Growth doesn’t always require geographic or professional upheaval. Sometimes it begins with internal clarity.

2. Identity Crises Create Identity Clarity

For a long time, I resisted the term “identity crisis.”

It sounded dramatic. Even weak.

But I’ve come to see it differently.

An identity crisis isn’t a breakdown -- it’s a recalibration.

When we lose a role, a title or a familiar structure, we’re suddenly forced to separate two things that are often tightly intertwined:

Who we are
and
what we do.

That separation is uncomfortable, but it can also be liberating.

Many of the leaders I spoke with described similar experiences. A role change, a restructuring, becoming a parent or navigating a personal transition suddenly forced them to reflect on deeper questions of purpose and identity.

Those moments are rarely easy, but they often become catalysts for more authentic leadership.

3. Titles Don’t Build Tribes. People Do.

One of the most unexpected lessons from losing my title had nothing to do with career development -- it had to do with relationships.

When my role disappeared, something else changed as well. Some professional relationships faded almost immediately.

Calls went unanswered.
Invitations stopped.

At first, I took this personally.

But over time, I came to understand something important: transactional relationships are a normal part of professional life. Many connections exist because of the roles we hold at a particular moment. When the role changes, so does the relationship. Recognizing this was painful -- but also freeing.

Because at the same time, something else became visible: the people who stayed. The ones who continued to reach out not to ask, “What’s next?” but to ask, “How are you?”

Those are the relationships that form a tribe. And tribes are built around trust, curiosity and shared values -- not business cards.

Leadership Beyond Titles

In industries like travel and hospitality -- where many careers are built around fast-paced environments, global mobility and high performance -- it’s easy for leaders to tie identity tightly to professional roles.

But leadership anchored only in title is fragile.

Leadership anchored in values, purpose and authentic relationships is far more resilient.

Today, I’m back in the corporate world and deeply enjoy it.
But my perspective on leadership has shifted.

Titles can change.
Companies can change.
Roles can disappear.

But who we are -- when everything else is stripped away -- is where our real leadership power lives.

These reflections have since evolved into conversations with leadership teams and industry peers about identity, reinvention and human-centric leadership.

Because if the past few years have taught me anything, it’s this:

The most important leadership work often begins not with strategy or structure -- but with self-understanding.

And sometimes all it takes to start that journey is a simple question:

Who are you without your title?