Julia Middleton, founder and CEO of Common Purpose, says that leaders need to keep it real

There is a compromise at the heart of leadership. The world only accepts and trusts simple solutions and prefers to believe that leaders don't make mistakes. This forces leaders to pretend that there are easy and straightforward answers and to present sound-bite solutions.

This results in what you could call a form of "multiple personality disorder" that comes to us all when there is a disconnect between image and reality, where leaders present a different face depending on what their stakeholders, audience or public wants. They have to pretend that at all times, they know exactly what they are doing and where they are going. Any human frailty must be concealed. It is exhausting and confusing. It sometimes leads to nobody trusting them, least of all themselves, at a time when their values as a leader are what they are being asked about.

I can remember a moment when I realised that I had allowed this to happen to me. I was altering my public persona to look and sound like what I thought people expected of a leader, and I didn't like it. It was over 10 years ago, and I was having my photograph taken for a picture to go alongside a newspaper article about me. The photographer and his assistants charged into my home. I was then carried away in a whirlwind of confusion, flattery and politeness to find myself covered in make-up, having a stranger rifle through my wardrobe and a white screen put up across my living room. 

So, while leaders need to face up to the need for multiple faces, they should be careful not to lose sight of themselves in the process. They shouldn't confuse their public face with the one that makes real decisions in a real world. They must not start to believe the PR, and should avoid reading the articles about themselves, and even worse, reading the press releases.

Instead, they need to parallel these two worlds, neither believing their own words of simplicity or getting lost in the complexity of reality. Like all things in leadership, it is about balance, avoiding extremes of both. A turbulent network of people who tell you the truth even when you don't want to hear it can help you find the balance. Take heed of those who tell you when you aren't getting it right.

Choosing when, and how much, of yourself to reveal in public is a fine judgement. But it is worth the risk.