According to research by McKinsey, 60% of women in mid-level roles say they are “doing more work than ever”—but fewer than 30% are getting promoted to senior positions.
Are you getting praised for how much you get done? Are you known for getting hard things done? You’re probably described as reliable, efficient, and a high performer. Despite all this you’re overlooked for the leadership roles you want.
Here’s the hard truth: at mid-career, DOING isn’t enough anymore.
If you want to land that senior leadership role, it’s time to stop being the “go-to” person and start becoming the strategic leader your organization needs.
Mid-career is a tipping point. The skills that got you here, like being dependable, efficient, and execution-focused, won’t get you to the next level. Senior leadership demands a new way of thinking, communicating, and leading.
Shifting from DOER to LEADER is the leap that mid-career professionals must make to transition into more senior leadership or executive leadership roles.
Why this SHIFT matters
- Promotions to senior roles are based on leadership potential, not execution alone.
- The more you “do,” the more you may be inadvertently signalling that you’re not ready to lead but are comfortable in the “doing”.
- The more you’re a doer the harder it is for your manager to promote and replace you, so they prefer to keep you where you are – it makes their job easier.
What the SHIFT looks like
When you shift from being doer to leader, this is what the shift looks like:
- You shift from being a task executor to becoming a strategic thinker capable of working beyond the current challenge. You move from tactical action to vision setting.
- You shift from being an individual contributor, focused on your tasks, to becoming a team enabler who can use the strengths of team members to get things done.
- You shift from needing to have full control to embracing autonomy and inspiring autonomy and accountability in others.
Five ways to make the SHIFT
- Create your new identity
- Move from “I deliver” to “I enable others to deliver.”
- Let go of perfectionism and train others to succeed
- Remember what Marshall Goldsmith says, “What got you here won’t get you there.”
- Amplify your presence
- Communicate with clarity, confidence, and executive presence.
- Speak up in meetings and share ideas beyond your immediate scope.
- Focus on relationships, visibility and positioning.
- Think strategically
- Replace action lists with vision, influence, and the pursuit of long-term impact.
- Ask: “How does this connect to and bring us closer to achieving the bigger picture?”
- Let go of the “Expert” role
- Senior roles require empowering others rather than having all the answers.
- Initiate, guide and lead others to showcase their knowledge
- Lead through others
- Your results now come from leading teams, not ticking off tasks.
- Master the art of delegation and delegate with intention. Research from Harvard Business Review shows that “high performers often hit a ceiling when they fail to delegate. This is because consistently taking on too many tasks themselves, instead of distributing them, can lead to burnout, limit their growth, and hinder the development of their team.”
Shifting from doer to leader isn’t about abandoning your strengths—it’s about elevating how you apply them. You don’t have to let go of what makes you great, you just have to use it differently. It means evolving your strengths to drive impact at a higher level. The sooner you embrace this shift, the faster you’ll unlock your executive potential.