When Successful C-Suite Leaders Plateau

I recently explored why successful executives plateau with a group of CIOs at an annual technology conference in Detroit.

It was an important conversation and one I don’t see us having enough at senior levels, even though plateaus happen more often than we might realize.

The conversation was part of a world I refer to as Executiveland: the environment leaders enter as they move into the C-Suite and other senior roles, where the expectations, stakes and rules of performance change, often without anyone explicitly telling you how.

Over the past 20 years of working with executives and leadership teams, I’ve noticed two groups emerge when it comes to performance in Executiveland. One group continues to expand. As the role gets harder, they get better. Then there’s another group. At first, I didn’t quite know how to think about them. Low performers? Underperformers? Neither fit, because on paper, the two groups looked remarkably similar.

Both were talented, smart and experienced. Both held senior roles or were already in the C-Suite, responsible for significant parts of the business. And both were leading significant initiatives: restructuring, global teams, transformation and growth.

Eventually, I realized I wasn’t looking at high performers and low performers: I was looking at leaders whose performance continued to expand and leaders who had hit a plateau.

An executive plateau can be hard to spot because it doesn’t necessarily look like a performance problem. Quite the opposite: You may still be delivering results, getting good feedback and being trusted with important work. Nothing about that screams, ‘We have a problem.’

What Is An Executive Plateau?

That’s what makes an executive plateau so tricky. The issue isn’t necessarily underperforming. It’s what I call underrealizing: the gap between the impact you’re having and the impact you’re capable of having.

What An Executive Plateau Looks Like

Executive plateaus rarely announce themselves. The signals often show up slowly and subtly. For example: Your results are still strong, but your influence isn’t expanding. You’re doing more of what you already know how to do. You’re solving difficult problems, but increasingly, they are versions of problems you’ve solved before.

You may notice that other people are getting pulled into conversations that once included you. It becomes harder to get time with certain stakeholders. Someone else increasingly becomes the person people turn to for an important issue or decision.

Most of all, you can feel it. It’s that sense that, as good as you are and as well as you may be performing, you have more to give than this. Deep down, you know more is possible.

The concern is that, over time, those subtle signals can become more consequential.

For instance: Reporting relationships shift, or your role decreases in scope. You might find yourself further removed from important decisions, layered under another executive, or even passed over for an opportunity you expected to receive.

Why Plateaus Are Common In Executiveland

Why do we see plateaus happen at executive levels? In part, because there’s no obvious next step. Earlier in your career, you likely had some sense of where you were headed: the next role, greater responsibility, a bigger opportunity. That next step gave you something to work toward and often required you to grow in order to get there.

But once you reach the executive level, where exactly do you go from there? The next destination becomes less obvious, and so can the motivation to keep stretching in new ways.

The job can also become surprisingly repetitive. By the time leaders get to the executive level, they have seen their fair share of restructurings, transformations, CEO moves, or strategy pivots. Even the most consequential matters are ones that many executives have seen some version of before.

Then there’s your performance model: your personal recipe for success. Over the years, you’ve developed ways of thinking, leading and operating that produce results. Those approaches helped get you here, so it’s only natural to keep relying on them. The challenge is that the role continues to change even when your performance model doesn’t.

inally, development often becomes harder to come by at senior levels. There are fewer people pushing for your growth or willing to tell you that the way you’re leading may need to evolve. Over time, it becomes easy to see how even talented leaders may plateau without realizing it.

Getting Beyond The Executive Plateau

So what do you do if you suspect you’ve hit a plateau? The answer isn’t simply to work harder. In fact, that can make the problem worse: If your current performance model has stopped expanding, doing more of what you already do may simply reinforce it.

Instead, consider the following:

1. Ask yourself: Where am I still learning?

Look for places where you don’t immediately know the answer, where your existing expertise isn’t sufficient and where you have to develop a new way of thinking or operating. At this level, growth may no longer come in the form of a new role or promotion. You may have to deliberately create the conditions for it.

2. Look beyond results.

Results always matter, but they can also hide a plateau. Instead of asking only, Am I delivering? expand the question. For instance:

• Where am I having more influence than I was a year ago?
• Am I being pulled into bigger, harder, or more important areas?
• What am I doing now that genuinely stretches or inspires me?
• How am I a better leader today than I was two years ago?

Those questions highlight where to look or go deeper if you suspect you’re in a plateau right now.

3. Be willing to find out.

One of the hardest things about an executive plateau is recognizing it yourself. You need people who can help you see the gap between how you’re performing today and what may be possible from you next. Be open to finding out, and get input from a trusted peer, mentor or coach who is willing to challenge you rather than simply affirm you. Ask a question you may not normally ask: Where do you think I’m capable of having greater impact than I am today? Versus: How am I doing?

Executive Plateaus will happen

A plateau, by definition, is a period of relative flatness after a period of growth. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We don’t have to be growing all the time. But we also shouldn’t stay there too long: Growth is what keeps us engaged, energized and doing some of our best work.

The question isn’t whether you’ll hit a plateau; it’s whether you’ll recognize when it’s time to start growing again. The strongest companies continue to evolve, adapt and find new sources of growth, and so do the strongest leaders.