The Paradox of Competence

She'd been promoted three times in four years.

Every promotion came with the same feedback: 'You're brilliant. We just need you to be more strategic, less in the weeds.'

She heard it. She agreed with it. And then she watched herself, in meeting after meeting, get pulled back into the operational details. Fixing things she had hired people to fix.

She came to me convinced she had a discipline problem.

In our session I asked her: 'When you reach for the operational detail, what are you protecting yourself from?'

Long silence.

Then: 'If I'm not the one solving it, what am I even doing in the room?'

She wasn't undisciplined. She was carrying a voice. The inner voice that had built her career and now refused to let her step into the next one. The voice that whispered 'your worth is what you fix' when she should have been listening to 'your worth is what you enable'.

Three promotions in. Still being paid by the version of herself she'd outgrown.

Most leaders I work with are running outdated software. The instincts that earned them the role are now the very things blocking the next one.

The question isn't 'how do I be more strategic'.

It's 'which part of me has to retire before the next version can take the seat?'

What's the version of you that needs to retire, so the next one can lead?

If that question lands, the discovery call is where it gets answered.

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Deepak Narayan is an independent leadership coach and consultant at Rivi Consulting.