There are two types of managers. Those afraid of being exposed, and those afraid of being finished.
And the problem is that the second group is rewarded right up until they turn into the first.
In most careers, growth is the reason we get promoted. But once you move into management positions, growth often feels less like opportunity and more like a threat to your authority.
The assumption is that as a manager you have graduated from being a student, and now you are the expert. And experts aren’t supposed to learn. They are supposed to know.
You still run into new situations and problems, so you do learn something new, but overall we convince ourselves that as managers we are here to give answers, not look for them.
I ran into this myself. Working in data and analytics, there’s always something new to keep up with, and I wanted to stay on top of it. But it was easy to find a reason to delay. I had to finish a project, or complete a hiring round, or prepare for an important presentation, or something more urgent. So I kept pushing it forward.
That dynamic works for the company, but it works against you.
Managers learn a system that helps the business and slowly limits them. You spend most of your energy on other people’s work, hoping you’ll earn time for yourself later.
If that means answering emails before learning something new, fine. But if it means waiting until you feel completely settled before you start learning again, that’s a problem.
When you stop being curious, things don’t break immediately. It just feels like you’ve reached a comfortable level. But in a moving world, staying still is the same as falling behind.
For senior leaders, one of the hardest balances to find is between authority and humility. Between having the answers and asking better questions. Between relying on what worked yesterday and being open to what might work next.
You want to be steady for your team, but if you never change, you stop helping and start getting in the way.
It’s not an easy problem to solve.
One thing that has helped me is occasionally asking for reverse mentorship. I ask my team what I’m doing that feels slow, outdated, or unnecessary.
The difficult part is not asking. It’s listening without defending. It’s catching the instinct to explain why things are the way they are and justify the trade-offs, instead of actually hearing what’s being said.
The authority you’ve built as a manager is a tool to explore, not something to lock yourself inside.
If you aren’t learning, you aren’t leading. You’re just doing the job the same way while everything around you changes.
Have a good one.
- - Good Enough