If you’ve spent years doing excellent work and still feel stuck, you’re not imagining it.
Many higher education leaders were shaped by a formula that worked early in their careers: work hard, produce results, stay dependable. At mid-career and beyond, that formula quietly stops working — and no one tells you why.
The Visibility Gap
Institutions are complex political systems. Decision-makers at senior levels aren’t primarily evaluating who carries the heaviest operational load or who works the longest hours. They’re evaluating institutional influence, strategic presence, and cross-campus visibility.
This is a fundamentally different game — and it rewards different behaviors than the ones that built your early career.
Buried in Execution
The challenge for many capable leaders is that their strengths become a trap. They’re skilled, reliable, and excellent at solving problems — so they get more problems to solve. They become indispensable operationally, which keeps them exactly where they are.
Being known as dependable is not the same as being seen as a strategic institutional leader. And that distinction matters enormously when advancement decisions are made.
What Positioning Actually Means
Strategic positioning isn’t self-promotion. It’s making your leadership readiness visible to the people who make advancement decisions.
That might mean contributing to institutional initiatives outside your department. Building relationships across divisions. Developing and sharing perspective on institutional challenges — not just operational ones. Showing up in spaces where strategic leadership is being discussed and demonstrated.
Hard work is necessary. It’s simply no longer sufficient.
At senior levels, how your leadership readiness is perceived shapes advancement far more than how hard you’re working. Changing that perception requires intentional strategy — not more effort.
If you’re doing strong work but feeling stuck, schedule a Higher Ed Leadership Strategy Call to think strategically about your positioning and next steps.