You can’t coach a label. But you can coach a pattern.

That simple truth lies behind much of my work with senior leaders, especially now, as identity awareness rises and real inclusion risks getting lost in translation.

This article explores how labels, however well-intended, can quietly limit the very people they’re meant to support, and what leaders must do differently if they want to lead with clarity, not complexity.

Beyond the Label: Lead People as They Are, Not by Their Category

We’ve made real progress in bringing mental health, neurodiversity, and identity into the workplace conversation. I’ve led programmes on all of these, some incredibly effective, others that fell flat and even alienated the people they were meant to support.
The truth is, well-intentioned initiatives sometimes create more noise than clarity. They can raise expectations leaders aren’t equipped to meet, or worse, build a sense of difference that becomes divisive, not inclusive.

I’ve seen this happen.

One mental health programme I helped lead succeeded because it built awareness and capability. Managers were supported to understand not just the issue, but their role in it. One DEI programme, by contrast, ran into resistance not because the cause wasn’t worthy, but because it asked people to adopt perspectives their context couldn’t yet support. The programme exposed cultural fault lines that our business wasn’t ready to resolve.

In some parts of the UK, particularly where daily exposure to visible difference is limited, these initiatives can feel abstract, even imposed. What lands well in one location might backfire elsewhere. We need to acknowledge that inclusion looks different in different contexts and that values alone won’t overcome capability gaps.

Labels as a Lens – But Also a Limit

Labels can help open doors. They give voice to lived experience. But they can also quickly become shortcuts to explain, excuse, or avoid deeper enquiry.

“Are they neurodivergent? Burnt out? Female in tech? A carer? Gen Z? A high-potential introvert with imposter syndrome?”

These identities matter. But they’re not everything. When labels become the lens through which we see and define someone’s potential, we start to miss the whole person.

This is especially dangerous in leadership and development conversations.

I often remind clients:

You can’t coach a label. But you can coach a pattern.

Take a senior leader who’s struggling to speak up in executive meetings.

A label-focused approach might diagnose them as “introverted” or suffering from “imposter syndrome” and send them on a confidence course.

A pattern-focused approach looks deeper:

What happens before, during, and after those meetings?
Are they second-guessing their views or deferring to hierarchy?
Is their preparation style aligned with how they process information?
What beliefs are shaping their behaviour, and are those beliefs still serving them?

This isn’t about rejecting labels. It’s about not stopping there.

The pattern is where the real coaching work begins.

Psychology tells us that once a label is applied, the brain unconsciously looks for evidence to confirm it, a phenomenon known as confirmation bias.

Add stereotype threat, and people may even underperform when reminded of a label they carry.

In short, the label we use to “understand” someone can quietly become a frame that limits how we see them and how they see themselves.

A label can be a lens.

But when the lens distorts more than it clarifies, you have to question what you’re really seeing.

The Inclusion Paradox

Here’s the deeper tension:

How do we acknowledge identity-based discrimination and the very real barriers many people face without reducing people to those identities?

How do we create cultures that recognise difference without falling into hierarchy-of-oppression thinking that leaves others feeling erased, blamed, or excluded?

How do we support equity and fairness while still insisting that the best person for the job is the one who gets it?

These are not easy questions, but they’re the ones I believe modern leadership must wrestle with.

So What Should Leaders Do?

First, stop outsourcing this work to slogans, templates, or “experts” who lecture without building capability. I’ve seen too many senior teams demoralised by tick-box DEI sessions that left more confusion than clarity.

Second, recognise that identity doesn’t tell you how someone thinks, works, or leads. Capability does. Inclusion must go beyond awareness. It requires real skill, the ability to hold multiple truths, to build trust across differences, and to lead people without losing them in generalisations.

Third, develop your ability to spot patterns in behaviour, in team dynamics, in decision-making. This is where real coaching starts. And this is where change takes root.

Use coaching, mentoring, and feedback loops that focus on behaviour, not identity.

That’s what reveals capability. That’s what drives inclusion with impact.

The Bigger Context

In 2024, Gartner and SHRM identified “leader and manager development” as the top priority for HR and People functions. Not awareness. Not compliance. Capability.
Research by Christina Ottsen (Copenhagen Business School) explores how neurodiversity is increasingly used in organisational settings, but warns against reducing people to labels. She highlights the risk of identity becoming a strategic shortcut that oversimplifies complex human needs, a point that both supports and challenges this piece.
The AESC’s “Checking Your Blind Spot” report adds further weight: even well-trained executives can default to unconscious biases under pressure, which is why we must go beyond policy into mindset and method.