Outgrowing The Version That Got You Here
Moving from execution identity to enterprise leadership
In a recent session, a newly promoted CCO shared something that stayed with me. She’d spent the previous week preparing for a board presentation - rehearsing, refining, making sure every number was right.
“The presentation went well,” she said. “But afterwards, one of the board members pulled me aside and said they’d appreciated how I’d framed the strategic context. Not the data. The context.”
It was a small moment, but it pointed to something much larger. She was beginning to operate at a different level, and those around her were noticing. But her sense of where her value lay hadn’t caught up - because what she had been recognised for, wasn’t what she had been trained to think was important.
There’s a pattern I notice with leaders who are moving into significantly broader or more senior roles. The technical shift - new scope, new stakeholders, different decisions - is hard, but manageable. What’s less visible, and often more disorienting, is the identity shift that runs underneath it.
For many of the leaders I work with, their confidence has been rooted, for years, in being excellent at something specific. In knowing the domain. In being the person with the answers, the track record, the instincts that others trust. That competence built not just a reputation, but a self-image.
At the next level, that foundation quietly shifts. The role asks for something different - broader thinking, cross-functional influence, decisions made with imperfect information, a presence that sets the tone rather than delivers the output. And the skills that built the reputation start to feel, at least momentarily, less relevant.
This shift in identity isn’t about performance or skills. It is the gap between the version of yourself that got you here, and the version the role now requires.
What makes it complicated is that the transition rarely announces itself. You don’t wake up one day and realise you’re leading differently - or that you need to. Instead, there’s a slow accumulation of moments: the meeting where you realise you can’t rely on expertise alone, the feedback that’s harder to interpret, the growing awareness that being liked for execution is not the same as being respected for direction.
Some leaders respond by doubling down on what they know. Staying close to the detail. Staying in the parts of the role that feel familiar and safe. It’s an understandable response - but it often deepens the gap rather than closes it.
Others are uncertain how to reposition internally - how to be seen differently by people who knew the previous version of them. So they wait, hoping the shift will happen naturally, without having to actively claim it.
What I see in leaders who navigate this well is something more deliberate, as they start to explore intentionally what their new identity might look like.
This requires being honest about what you might be holding onto, and why. It requires noticing where you’re playing small not because you lack capability, but because the new version of you doesn’t yet feel fully yours. And it requires intentionally designing who you want to become, and what you want to be known for now.
This internal repositioning - how colleagues, peers, and the organisation see and experience you doesn’t happen by osmosis.
It happens through a combination of behaviour, language, and how you choose to show up. And it starts from the inside.
Notice: Identity shifts in leadership are rarely obvious from the inside. Start by locating where you are.
Where are you still leading from the old version of yourself - the one built on expertise or execution?
What does it feel like when your value is recognised for something other than what you’ve always been known for?
What part of the previous version of you are you most reluctant to let go of?
Reframe: The skills that got you here aren’t irrelevant, but the way you deploy them is changing.
How might the strengths you’ve built - domain knowledge, execution, technical credibility - serve you differently at this level, rather than less?
Where are you measuring your contribution in the wrong currency - looking for the familiar sense of ‘done’ in a role that rewards something harder to see?
What would it mean to be successful in this role in a way that has nothing to do with being the smartest person in the room?
Own it: Internal repositioning doesn’t happen passively. It requires you to make choices about how you show up.
Who in your organisation still sees you through the lens of who you were?
Where could you be more visible in the ways this level of leadership requires, rather than retreating into the parts of the role that feel familiar?
What would it look like to actively claim the leader you’re becoming, rather than waiting for others to see it first?
Sit with it: Not all of this needs to be resolved quickly. Some of it simply needs to be acknowledged.
What are you grieving about the version of yourself you’re moving away from - and have you given yourself space to recognise that?
What’s one thing the emerging version of you does well that the previous version couldn’t have?
What would it feel like to lead fully from who you’re becoming, rather than who you’ve been?
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