My latest article in Forbes:

If you’re like most of the leaders I work with, you are considered a high achiever. You take pride in doing what you do and you do it well. You are conscientious, smart, hard-working and you take personal responsibility for the high quality of everything you do. You want to do well, make a meaningful contribution and feel personally validated for a job well done. You have gained recognition and accolades over the years for how well you do things and for all that you accomplish.

It seems as if the harder you work and the more responsibility you take on, the more you’re validated and the more responsibility you’re given. It all works gloriously well for you … until you are promoted to an even higher-level leadership position where you can’t possibly personally keep track of it all. There is so much new coming at you from all directions and you are responsible for so much more.

You try working harder and longer and doing more and more, but the scope of your responsibility is now so large that you can’t keep up. You no longer have a handle on everything and there are a lot of areas you know nothing about. You aren’t really sure what is expected of you and your new peers now look to you for answers about everything under your purview.

You struggle to learn and get up to speed, but it’s clear to you that it will take months or even years before you can get a comfortable grasp on the details and complexities of some of the areas you’re responsible for. Panic, anxiety and overwhelm overtake you in waves on most days, and you feel like you’re struggling to bob your head above water.

What have you done? You secretly think that you must be in the wrong job and they were wrong to promote you to this role. You don’t know enough, can’t learn it fast enough and will disappoint everyone when they find out about your inadequacy.

Click here to read the rest of this article just published in Forbes…