Not everything that got you here deserves to be trusted. Some of it just survived.
Marshall Goldsmith calls it the success delusion. Once something has worked, we confuse the behaviours that produced the result with the behaviours that survived it.
The people he coaches are not failing. They are already successful. Their problem is smaller and harder to see: the higher you go, the more a suggestion sounds like an order. Nobody tells you.
An executive thinks he is contributing, but the room experiences interruption. A manager thinks she is delegating, but her team feels abandoned. Someone thinks he is being candid, but colleagues have stopped sharing unfinished ideas with him.
The example that has stayed with me is what Goldsmith calls adding too much value. A senior person hears a good idea and improves it. The idea gets 5 percent better, but the person who had it becomes far less committed.
I used to assume development meant acquiring something: more knowledge, another skill, a better framework. Goldsmith makes the opposite case. At a certain point, progress depends less on what we add than on what we are willing to stop.
Success does not prove all your habits were useful. It may only prove they have not stopped you yet.