This study, drawing on collaborative autoethnography, explores the ongoing negotiation of managerial identity struggles and leaderful practices in a university context. The empirical material is based on autoethnographic diary notes of two authors of this study. Through our collaborative analysis, we identify two embodied identity struggles through which we negotiated leadership expectations in the university setting. We further attempted to create leaderful practices to support collective leadership emergence as we: (1) moved between heroic and collective leadership expectations through bodily places and space, while attempting to (2) resolve our own insecurities and internal “inspirational’ leadership expectations. This study contributes to the discussion of leadership-as-practice (L-A-P) by verbalizing the embodied and often invisible identity struggles managers face when attempting to promote leaderful practices. Further, the paper increases understanding of how managerial identity struggles can function as an effective means of leadership learning. Methodologically, this study engages with the recent discourse on collaborative autoethnography in the study of leadership-as-practice, demonstrating how collaborative autoethnographic reflections offer a reflexive understanding of the research phenomenon.