Aspiring leaders often believe a promotion will finally empower them to fix everything. In reality, each level up—from Director to CPO—introduces a more complex set of problems, constraints, and stakeholder dynamics, not fewer. The feeling of being "unchained" is a myth.
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The higher you climb in an organization, the more your role becomes about solving problems. Effective leaders reframe these challenges as rewarding opportunities for great solutions. Without this mindset shift, the job becomes unsustainable and draining.
Climbing the corporate ladder isn't always the ultimate goal. As professionals become more senior, they often move away from the hands-on, creative work they are passionate about. Leaders advise cherishing mid-career roles where you can be "in the weeds" of the actual work.
High-performing ICs shouldn't view management as a one-way promotion. Instead, it's a temporary "tour of duty" taken on to solve a specific problem that has scaled beyond one person. The goal is to build a team, set a direction, and then transition back to an IC role to find the next challenge.
The transition from a hands-on contributor to a leader is one of the hardest professional shifts. It requires consciously moving away from execution by learning to trust and delegate. This is achieved by hiring talented people and then empowering them to operate, even if it means simply getting out of their way.
Traits like extreme responsiveness, which earn praise early in a career, can lead to burnout and poor prioritization at senior levels. Leaders must recognize when a once-beneficial belief no longer serves their new, scaled responsibilities and becomes a limiting factor.
Actively pursuing a promotion often leads to frustration because it depends on factors outside your control. The path to growth and happiness is to focus entirely on maximizing your impact in your current role. Promotions and recognition will eventually follow as lagging indicators.
High-level titles are context-dependent and fade once you leave a company. This realization should shift your focus from chasing promotions to building products that create a lasting personal legacy, as that is an impact you truly own.
Aspiring leaders often assume that at the executive level, everyone "gets it" and operates with high maturity. The reality is that C-suites are composed of imperfect people with biases and baggage. Expect the same—or more intense—dysfunctions, not a utopian state of rational business.
What made you a great PM will not make you a great director. The journey into leadership is a process of being humbled, recognizing your worldview is incomplete, and adapting your thinking. If you are not humble enough to change your mind, you will struggle to grow in your career.
Newly promoted directors often fall into the trap of "hero syndrome," trying to solve every problem themselves as they did as individual contributors. True leadership requires letting go, redirecting stakeholders to your team, and finding satisfaction in their success, not your own visibility and praise.