The career ceiling that looks like recognition


There is a pattern in organizational design research that names a specific kind of stuck, and it shows up most often in the leaders who are working hardest to be valuable. The math goes like this. A capable leader takes on more than the role requires, builds the kind of operational fluency that makes them the first call when anything specific goes wrong, and over time becomes the only person who can handle a particular set of decisions, conversations, or workflows. Their value to the...