Why Leadership Development Dies at Senior Levels, and How to Break the Pattern

We need more leaders.

Not more people who execute well. Not more high performers who hit their numbers. More people who can hold strategic weight, make difficult calls, and build the next generation.

And if we're not actively developing leaders at our level, we're missing the most important part of the work.

But let's be honest about why this doesn't happen.

The Pattern

I've watched mentorship and leadership development die at a certain level more times than I can count.

It's not because senior leaders don't believe in development. It's because they stop developing themselves, and the moment that happens, developing others becomes a threat.

Here's the pattern:

A leader invests in someone. Brings them along. Gives them visibility, stretch assignments, access to their thinking. The protégé grows. Gets sharper. Starts contributing at a higher level.

And then something shifts.

The senior leader starts feeling the gap narrow. They see someone capable of doing what they do, maybe even better in certain areas. And quietly, subtly, the development stops.

The invitations dry up. The access disappears. The person who was being groomed is now being managed at arm's length.

Why?

Because the senior leader hasn't expanded their own capacity. They've plateaued. And now anyone growing around them feels like competition instead of contribution.

This happens all the time. And it's devastating, not just for the person being dropped, but for the organization that loses its next generation of leadership.

The Cultural Reality

Let's be honest about why this pattern persists.

In many organizations, there's no reward for developing your replacement, only risk. Leaders read the culture correctly: if I develop someone who outshines me, I might lose my position. This isn't irrational insecurity. It's rational self-preservation in systems that punish generosity.

These incentive structures are real.

But here's what I know after 24 years: the culture doesn't change because the organization decides to value development. It changes because individual leaders decide they're going to develop people anyway, even when the system doesn't reward it.

We advocate for someone's promotion even when it creates ambiguity about our own role. We give them visibility even when it means sharing the spotlight. We invest in their next level even when the organization isn't structured to protect us for doing so. And yes, it requires us to be so relentlessly committed to our own expansion that other people's growth doesn't threaten us. Because the only way to take that risk, the risk of developing someone who might outgrow you, is to be confident you're not standing still.

This is the work of leaders who build legacy instead of protect territory.

And it's not safe. It's not guaranteed. The organization might not catch up to reward you for it. But the alternative is managing our careers from a place of scarcity and leaving behind a company full of people who learned not to grow past their leader's ceiling.

Someone has to go first. Maybe that's us.

Why I Made It My Mission to Put Myself Out of a Job

I'll be honest about my own journey with this: it required me to push beyond boundaries I didn't even know I'd set for myself.

Early in my leadership career, I realized something: developing leaders who were ready for my role wasn't a threat. It was the pathway to my own expansion.

I saw people on my team who wanted more. Who had the capacity for more. And I made it my mission to put myself out of a job. Not because I was selfless. Because I understood that if I was going to keep growing, I needed to create space for that growth, and that meant preparing people to step into what I was doing so I could step into what was next.

This does two things:

It puts the right people in place for when you've moved on, pushing someone else, a new leader, to push their own imposed boundaries. And it leaves the people who were reporting to you in good, capable, growth-driven hands.

It's healthy to say: I've taken this as far as I can take it. New perspective is good. It creates productive tension.

This philosophy is why I was able to take the leap into building Leader's Refinery.

Taking Risks

I spent 24 years in revenue leadership. I managed a $45M+ territory. I built teams that scaled. And at a certain point, I realized: 10+ years in one place is long enough. I'm too comfortable.

So I made the leap...more than once.

Was it terrifying? Absolutely. Did I question whether I was making the right call? Constantly. But the alternative, staying comfortable, not seeing what I was capable of, felt like a bigger risk.

I've taken on promotions I wasn't ready for and figured them out. Those experiences made me exponentially better than if I'd waited until I was "qualified." I've made industry shifts in almost every career move, knowing I had the capacity to learn and develop, even when I didn't have the domain expertise yet. I've said yes to challenges that stretched my capacity because I decided that every move, every experience, every setback would make me stronger instead of defeat me.

Here's what I've learned: we have to trust ourselves to make each challenge something that expands us, not something that diminishes us.

That's the mindset shift that changes everything.

Great People Actually Stay For...

Here's what I know after managing hundreds of people and building teams that scaled multi-million dollar territories:

Great people don't stay for status quo. They stay for growth, contribution, and the feeling that they're becoming who they're capable of being. When they realize their development has a ceiling, that they're being held back by a leader who's threatened by their growth, they leave.

You're left with a company full of followers. People who've learned not to outshine their boss.

Real-Time Mentorship

At this stage, development isn't about formal training. It's about real-time mentorship:

Bringing people into board prep. Letting them see how you're navigating complexity.

Giving them access to your strategic thinking, not just the polished outcome, but the messy middle where trade-offs are being weighed. Asking for their input on decisions that matter, not as courtesy, but as genuine inquiry into how they would approach the problem.

And here's the part that separates the leaders who build legacy from the ones who protect territory:

We give credit publicly. We advocate for their advancement even when it means they might outgrow us. We invest in their next level because we're confident in our own.

When we're standing in front of the board presenting the strategy, we acknowledge whose thinking shaped it. We make it clear: this wasn't solo work, it was collective intelligence.

The Questions

When I notice my team isn't growing, I've learned to ask myself: where am I the constraint?

Am I keeping them in execution mode because strategy feels like my domain?

Am I protecting my position instead of preparing them for theirs?

Have I stopped expanding myself and started managing the gap between us?

The best leaders I know are always developing and always being developed. They understand that leadership capacity isn't fixed. It's built in the repetition of being stretched, supported, and expected to contribute at higher altitude.

This Is the Year

Maybe this is the year we push beyond our self-imposed boundaries. Make leadership and life fulfilling in all areas. And know that if we fall, we just have a different, new, and journeyed perspective. And that's all growth.

We nurture potential or we lose it. And the only way to do that without feeling threatened is to be so committed to our own growth that other people's success amplifies ours instead of competing with it.

This is the work of leadership at altitude.

Ready to Expand Your Leadership Capacity?

If you're a woman in revenue leadership ready to break through your next ceiling, our intensive programs are designed to help you expand beyond where you've plateaued, so you can lead, develop, and scale; reaching your true potential in ways you may not have thought were possible.

Request Your Complimentary Planning Session