You finally made it. You've climbed the ladder, hit the KPIs, and maybe even got the corner office or the funding round you spent eighteen months chasing. It feels like you’ve cracked the code. But then, things start to feel... heavy. The same aggressive tactics that closed your first ten deals are suddenly alienating your executive team. The obsessive attention to detail that made you a star engineer is now making you a bottleneck as a CTO. It's a weird, frustrating paradox. Basically, the very skills that fueled your rise are now the exact things holding you back. This isn't just a hunch; it’s the core thesis of Marshall Goldsmith’s seminal work, and frankly, what got you here wont get you there is the most uncomfortable reality check any high achiever will ever face.
Success creates a sort of "superstition" in our brains. We think, "I am successful, I do X, therefore X causes my success." It’s a logical fallacy that Goldsmith, a world-renowned executive coach, has spent decades debunking. He’s worked with CEOs from Ford to Pfizer, and he’s seen the same pattern everywhere. People get promoted because of their technical brilliance or their relentless drive, but they fail in leadership because they can't stop "winning" every argument or they can't stop adding their "two cents" to every conversation.
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The Delusion of Success and Why We Stall
Most of us are walking around with a giant ego shield. When we're successful, we become incredibly resistant to change. Why fix what isn't broken, right? The problem is that the "broken" parts are often invisible to us but glaringly obvious to everyone we lead.
Goldsmith identifies twenty habits that hold people back. These aren't technical flaws. They're behavioral. We're talking about things like "winning too much"—that need to be right in every single discussion, even the ones that don't matter. Or "passing judgment." Or "making destructive comments." It sounds simple, almost like basic manners, but in a high-pressure corporate environment, these habits are toxic. They're the friction that slows down a billion-dollar machine.
Take the habit of "adding too much value." You’ve probably done this. An employee comes to you with a great idea. It’s 95% there. Instead of saying "Great job," you say, "That’s good, but why don't you add this one thing?" You think you’re helping. You think you’re making the idea 100% perfect. But you’ve actually just sucked the enthusiasm out of that employee. It’s no longer their idea; it’s your idea. You gained 5% in quality but lost 50% in commitment. That’s a bad trade.
Real World Shifts: From Doer to Leader
Think about the transition from a star salesperson to a Sales VP. As a salesperson, you’re an individual contributor. You’re a lone wolf. You kill what you eat. Your ego is tied to your personal numbers. But the moment you become a VP, your personal numbers don't matter anymore. Your success is now entirely dependent on the success of other people. If you keep trying to be the "closer" on every deal, you're not leading; you're just a glorified salesperson with a fancy title who is making their team feel incompetent.
Satya Nadella at Microsoft is a textbook example of understanding that what got you here wont get you there. When he took over from Steve Ballmer, Microsoft was known for a "know-it-all" culture. It was aggressive. It was siloed. Nadella shifted the entire organization toward a "learn-it-all" mindset. He realized that the aggressive, competitive internal culture that built the Windows monopoly was the exact thing preventing Microsoft from innovating in mobile and cloud. He had to change the fundamental behavior of the company, starting with himself.
The Feedback Gap
The higher you go, the less honest feedback you get. It’s lonely at the top because everyone is scared to tell the boss they’re being a jerk. This is where "Feedforward" comes in—a concept Goldsmith champions over traditional feedback. Instead of obsessing over the past (which you can't change), you ask people for suggestions for the future.
- Pick a behavior you want to change (e.g., "I want to be a better listener").
- Ask a colleague for two suggestions for the future that might help.
- Listen. Don't defend. Don't explain. Just say "Thank you."
It’s incredibly disarming. It bypasses the defensiveness that usually comes with performance reviews.
Why Technical Excellence Becomes a Liability
We see this a lot in tech and medicine. You have a brilliant surgeon or a legendary coder. They are the best at what they do. Naturally, they get promoted to run the department. But the skills required to write clean code have zero overlap with the skills required to manage a diverse team of humans with different motivations, fears, and personal lives.
The coder wants logic. Humans are messy and illogical.
If you stay in "expert mode," you become a bottleneck. You feel the need to review every line of code. You can't delegate because "nobody does it as well as I do." This is the classic trap. You’re working 80 hours a week, your team is frustrated because they aren't growing, and the project is behind schedule. Your technical excellence—the thing that got you the promotion—is now the primary reason the department is failing. You have to let go of being the smartest person in the room to become the most effective leader in the room.
The Twenty Habits That Hold You Back
Goldsmith's list is a mirror that most of us don't want to look into. Some of the most common ones include:
- Starting with "No," "But," or "However": These are secret ways of saying "I'm right and you're wrong." Even if you agree with someone, starting with "But" cancels out the agreement.
- Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re as clever as they think we are.
- Speaking when angry: Emotional volatility is a leadership killer.
- Withholding information: Using knowledge as a power play to maintain an edge.
- Failing to give proper recognition: The most basic emotional currency in a workplace, yet so often ignored.
- Claiming credit that we don't deserve: The fastest way to lose the loyalty of a high-performing team.
Honestly, it’s exhausting just reading that list. But if you're honest with yourself, you're probably guilty of at least three or four of them on a daily basis. I know I’ve caught myself starting sentences with "But" more times than I’d like to admit. It’s a hard habit to break because it’s a defense mechanism for our ego.
The Psychological Hurdles to Change
Why is it so hard to change? Because we are successful!
Our brains are wired to repeat behaviors that have been rewarded. If being an aggressive, interruptive jerk helped you win a big contract in 2022, your brain thinks that’s the "winning formula." You don't see the five other contracts you didn't win because people didn't want to work with you. You only see the "win."
We also suffer from "consistency bias." We want to believe that we are the same person we’ve always been. Changing our behavior feels like admitting we were "wrong" before. But leadership isn't about being right; it's about being effective.
The Role of an Executive Coach
This is why people pay coaches like Goldsmith or firms like Tasha Eurich’s group thousands of dollars. You need an outside perspective to hold up the mirror. You need 360-degree feedback where your subordinates, peers, and bosses can anonymously tell the truth about your behavior.
It’s painful. It’s humbling. But it’s the only way to break through the ceiling.
Actionable Steps: How to Actually Get "There"
If you've realized that your current trajectory has plateaued, you can't just work harder. You have to work differently. You have to stop doing things rather than doing more things.
1. Stop the "Two Cents" Habit
Next time someone brings you an idea, just say "Thank you" or "That’s interesting." Don't try to improve it immediately. Let them own it. See what happens when you give away the "win."
2. The "No, But, However" Purge
Monitor your speech for a week. Every time you start a sentence with one of these words, realize you’re shutting down the other person. Try to replace them with "Yes, and..." or just stay silent.
3. Apologize—And Mean It
If you've been the "smartest person in the room" for too long, you’ve probably left some bruised egos in your wake. A sincere apology to your team can do wonders for morale. "I realize I’ve been interrupting a lot lately because I’ve been stressed about the deadline. I’m sorry, and I’m working on being a better listener." It makes you human. It builds trust.
4. Practice Active Listening
Actually listen. Don't just wait for your turn to speak. If you're thinking about your rebuttal while the other person is talking, you aren't listening.
5. Pick One Thing
Don't try to fix all twenty habits at once. You'll fail. Pick the one habit that is causing the most friction in your professional relationships and focus on that for six months. Ask for "feedforward" from your team specifically on that one behavior.
The reality is that what got you here wont get you there because the "there" requires a completely different version of you. It requires a move from self-interest to collective interest. It requires moving from "look at me" to "look at them." It’s a transition from being a hero to being a hero-maker.
It’s not an easy shift. It’s much easier to just keep doing what you’ve always done and wonder why the results have stalled. But if you want to reach the next level—whether that’s the C-suite, a successful exit, or just being a leader people actually enjoy working for—you have to be willing to kill the version of yourself that got you this far.
Start by asking your team one simple question today: "What is one thing I can do to be a better partner to you in this project?" Then, and this is the hard part, just listen.