Wear Whatever the F You Want, and Lead However You Want

The official image for the show. AKA our call to action into bold leadership!

I don’t know about you, but I was a huge fan of the original What Not to Wear. So when I heard it was coming back with a brand new twist, my high-school self squealed with delight. The new show titled, Wear Whatever the F You Want, has kept all the best parts of the original show, the fun chemistry between Stacy and Clinton, and the amazing transformations but with a new, glorious angle: celebration, individuality, and permission to be yourself on purpose. With every new episode I am overjoyed! 

I was watching the show and it hit me, leadership should be the same.

For years we've been given a leadership “rulebook” by people who are invested in leadership being one way. It included things like: sacrifice yourself, keep your distance, conform, tone-police, and lead through fear. 

That “one right way” to lead has done real damage. 

It erases culture, stifles creativity, and keeps brilliant leaders out of the room.

If you’re here for a checklist of 27 “proven” ways to be a better leader, this is not that article. I’m not here to give you more rules, I’m here to give you permission. Permission to lead however the F you want! 

Instead, here are 3 pieces of advice I want every professional, especially those in leadership roles, to carry with them. 

1. Embrace What Makes your Leadership Style Authentically “You”

Leadership isn’t a costume you put on to match someone else’s picture of power. It’s the full combination of your voice, your values, your history, and your style.

Imagine a manager who stopped writing only “corporate-polished” emails and started writing like a human, warm, direct, and honest. Trading “please be advised…” for “hey, here’s a quick heads up” and signed off with their first name. The change was small, but the effect was huge: colleagues replied faster, people felt safer bringing up real problems, and collaboration stopped getting stuck behind formalities. 

Authenticity didn’t make them less professional, it made them more effective. That’s a basic example but you get the point, stop doing things the way that you think you need to do them and add your flair. Ask yourself: how would I naturally do this thing if I didn’t care about other people’s opinions about how I was doing it? 

Want to know what that thing is for me? Email signatures, ugh, I hate them. Do I say “best,” “regards,” or “sincerely?” I would never say those words in real life so why do I add them to my emails? Because someone told me that it was the proper and professional thing to do. 

If you’ve gotten an email from me, you'll see that I no longer subscribe to that rule. I sign all of my emails with “wishing you joy, India” and I love that small change. It is true to who I am and I genuinely do wish each and every person a day (and life) filled with joy. What can you change?

2. Center Joy in Your Leadership

It’s no secret, joy is a guiding principle in my life and I am going to shout it from the rooftops every chance I get. And as you could probably guess I also believe it should be the cornerstone of your leadership.

Joy is a strategy. When people enjoy the environment they work in, they show up more fully, stay longer, and do better work. 

I had a client who noticed that her team spent a lot of time in their individual offices and no one took advantage of the communal spaces for huddles or even casual meetups. She even tried to spark some interest by sitting out there for an hour once a day a week to see if others would join her and no one did. What that week taught her is that: 1) the space sucked. It had all of the hallmark characteristics of a drab office vibe. And 2) people didn’t know how to use the space. Was it meant to be relaxing? Was it for meetings? It clearly had an identity crisis that needed fixing. 

So she got to work. She knew she wanted to put some life and fun into the space and back into her team so during a break she gave the space a makeover. She got some plants, a comfy seating nook, interactive wall installations, snacks (because who can resist snacks) and a DJ system. When the staff returned she had a fun reveal and announced an optional rotating “office DJ” every team member would get a chance to curate the playlist that would play in their communal space for the week. 

It was a hit! 

People started lingering in that spot. Conversations happened organically. My client continued her hour there a day, informally chatting with team members and started to learn of small wins and concerns before they became big problems. Productivity and morale both rose because relationships deepened. 

This was all because she chose to center joy. What is a small way that you could center joy into your work and leadership?

3. Disrupt and Resist Norms that Stifle Your Brilliant Leadership

“Professionalism” too often means assimilation. It’s the invisible rulebook that tells people to minimize themselves to fit someone else’s comfort. It smothers creativity and keeps entire communities from rising.

That’s boring and no real change ever came from people who played by the rules. Well, maybe, but who remembers those folks? Some of the most profound shifts in business have come from leaders who have dared to disrupt. 

It looks like the leader who rips up the “9am–5pm” script and trusts people to do great work when they do their best work. A manager who lets a parent start earlier and finish earlier, or a night owl do their deep work after hours. It’s those people who see a rise in output and fall in burnout. If COVID taught us anything it’s that we need to be flexible. Being flexible doesn’t mean we need to lower our expectations. It means respecting rhythms and creating space for creatively meeting our goals.

This kind of disruption is not selfish. It’s strategic and it’s magical. When you break rules that were never designed for everyone, you make room for the next generation of leaders who’ve been told they don’t belong. But even more importantly, you give room for your team to really flourish without all of the red tape bullshit that sometimes makes it hard for them to show up as whole human beings with lives and needs outside of work.  

Ask yourself: what do you want to disrupt? What’s a rule that you’re currently following that you could do without? What would life look like without it? Break it for a week and measure the outcome.

Leadership, like fashion, is more powerful when it’s personal

It’s not about copying someone else’s look or imitating their style,  it’s about building a way of leading that feels so aligned with who you are at your core that it could never be mistaken for anyone else’s. Think about the leaders you’ve admired most. Chances are, it wasn’t because they followed the “right” rules. It was because they made you feel something. They wore their values as boldly as a statement necklace. They showed up in ways that didn’t just check the boxes, they broke the mold.

When leadership is personal, it’s memorable. 

When it’s personal, it’s magnetic. 

Wear whatever the F you want. Lead however the F you want.

And I mean that in the deepest sense. Maybe that means you show up to a meeting in bright sneakers because you move better when you’re comfortable. Maybe it means you lead your team from a hammock during summer Fridays because your best ideas come when your shoulders are unclenched. Maybe it means you toss out the “professional distance” rule and build real, human relationships with the people you work alongside.

This isn’t about being careless, it’s about being intentional. Intentional about showing up as yourself, not some character in this broken system that you’ve been socialized to play.

One thing for certain, two things for sure is the systems that built the rules were never designed for everyone to win. 

They were built for conformity, not creativity. 

They were built for compliance, not care.

They were built for keeping the machine running, not keeping the people whole.

And if you want to create something better, whether it’s in your company, your community, or your own life, you have to be willing to rip out the seams and start fresh.

When you lead from your full self, with your voice, your joy, and your willingness to break what doesn’t serve you, you give permission to everyone around you to do the same. You tell your team, your colleagues, and even your bosses:  “You don’t have to leave the best parts of yourself at the door.” 

You plant the idea that work can feel like a place where you belong. That success doesn’t have to feel heavy. That joy is not a side effect of good leadership, it’s the point!

And that’s where the magic happens. Because once people see it’s possible to lead this way? They can’t unsee it. 

They start to imagine what it would look like for them. And little by little, the culture shifts. 

The work shifts. 

The world shifts.

So yes — wear whatever the F you want,

But more importantly, lead how ever the F you want, 

And watch how the room changes when you do.

Want a deeper dive? 

Download the 10 Characteristics of a Joyful Leader for a fuller vision of what’s possible. 

Want to bring this conversation to your team?

This article was inspired by our Joyful Leaders Workshop, a space where leaders reflect, practice, and reclaim leadership as a source of joy, alignment, and sustainable impact. Being a leader can bring deep joy and fulfillment when approached with intention, self-awareness, and balance; our workshop helps you discover how joy can enhance your well-being and your impact.

The Joyful Leaders Workshop is a hands-on experience to help teams build cultures that center joy, authenticity, and liberation. 

Contact us to book a session