Most leaders assume that the reason they are stuck below the next title is some gap in their performance. In my experience working with directors and vice presidents here in Houston and around the country, the gap is almost never competence. The way that you are communicating is what is costing you your credibility, and it is creating a ceiling that keeps you out of the role you have been working so hard to step into.
Most people never see it happening, because the communication style that got them promoted is the exact same style that eventually stops working for them.
What Is the Executive Communication Ceiling?
The executive communication ceiling is the point where the communication habits that earned you your current title become the reason you cannot earn the next one. Every level of leadership requires you to communicate value differently, and leaders who keep communicating the way they always have will stall, regardless of how well they perform.
The climb generally moves through four stages, and the shift required at each one is different:
- Individual contributor to manager, where you communicate through the work you personally deliver
- Manager to director, where you have to communicate the value you create through other people
- Director to vice president, where you have to communicate fluently outside of your own function
- Vice president to C-suite, where you have to communicate in the language of the entire business
Why Do the Communication Habits That Got You Promoted Stop Working?
Managers spend so much of their career focused on doing the thing, delivering the reports, designing the tool, and on and on. That is also how they communicate because it is how they have always created value.
They think that because doing all of the reports and all of the tasks is what got them into a manager level role, doing more and more and more of it will carry them through to the next one. That is not how this works.
The things that made you successful going from front line contributor into a manager role become the exact sticking point when you try to ascend past it, because stepping up to the next level is going to require a different version of you.
How Should a Manager Communicate Differently to Reach Director?
When you start focusing on elevating from manager to director, you have to figure out how to really articulate the value you bring as a leader. It is no longer about the individual task in front of you, it is about becoming a force multiplier.
That means working with each person on your team to make sure they are successful, and it also means learning how to teach. This is your first real test of whether your own productivity can stop being the most important thing you are measuring.
The two week vacation test
You have to build a team so strong that you don’t know who the leader is. The practical test is whether you can step away for a two week vacation and nothing is going to break.
This actually trips quite a few people up because they grapple with this idea of, “Well, if I’m not doing the thing, then I’ll just get replaced.” That is not how this works either. When you build your team so strong that they can operate without you, it frees you up to step into that director level role.
What Changes in the Move From Director to Vice President?
Once you have been in the director seat for a period of time and your team is running without much intervention or guidance from you, you want to set your sights on that VP level role. To step up to the VP level, you have to start understanding other elements of the business, which means stepping outside of just leading your own function and going above and beyond to help other business units.
For me that looked like stepping in and starting to lead Human Resources after a career in IT. That was a significant stretch, and it was exactly what I needed.
The best way to approach this is to start having conversations with your business unit leaders or other functional domain leaders, and genuinely understand how they do what they do. The cheat code here is to find any way possible to provide value to them and set them up for success.
When you start on this, people are probably going to have their walls up and start asking why you are suddenly showing up in their world. Just keep leaning into it, and just keep solving their problems. The more of their problems you solve, the more exposure you are going to get to their teams and their domains, and the more exposure you have, the easier it becomes to solve even more problems.
This is where you start building a holistic understanding of all of the interconnects between all of the different silos in the business, which is exactly what makes higher level and more strategic conversations possible.
What Do You Have to Communicate in the Boardroom?
Moving from vice president into the C-suite, you have to start intimately understanding the language of the business.
Yes, you need to know how to read a P&L, but you also need to understand what drives every element of it. How do customers move through the business from marketing, to sales, to delivery of service, to invoicing? How is cash flow actually being managed? Those are the conversations occurring in the boardroom every single day.
There is an expectation that you already know everything in your primary domain. There is also an expectation that you know what is going on in every other domain, because when you sit down at that table and you can only contribute in one way, that might carry you for a little while, but it is not going to get you the seat.
They are looking for thought partners. They are looking for leaders that can bring an outside perspective into the room.
Why Does a Senior Executive Need a Public Facing Presence?
There are C-level executives that are a ghost online and never go to a single conference or event. Usually, they have been at the same company for a very long period of time. This is fine, but if they are ever exited from that company, they usually find themselves in a bind.
That is not what we want. We want to optimize who we are so that people actually understand what our brand is. Your online presence needs to reflect you as an executive that understands the business overall and not as an expert in one narrow lane.
You also want to get out to industry events. If you don’t like networking, I don’t care… you have to go. You have to meet your peers because they are all sitting in different companies and industries, and every conversation you have with them gives you insight into the macro backdrop that is affecting your own business. Here in Houston, where energy, industrial, healthcare and technology leadership circles overlap constantly, those rooms are unusually valuable.
Think about how that positions you when you walk back into a board meeting and can speak to what your competitors are doing, how they are differentiating themselves, and how you can use that to get ahead. Reading articles will only take you so far. Going to the events, sitting on the panel, sharing the lessons you have learned… that is what pulls the right conversations toward you.
How Long Does It Take to Go From Manager to the C-Suite?
The climb from manager to director to vice president to C-level is roughly a fifteen year journey in my experience, depending on how good you are in various domains and how many companies you move through along the way.
I have seen instances where someone gets promoted from manager to director to VP to C-level inside of a single year, and the same dynamics unfolded every time. Their ego was so massive they couldn’t fit their head through the door, and they were also massively incompetent at what they did, not because they were a bad person, but because they never had enough time in the seat at any level to fully understand what the role was supposed to look like.
Time in the seat is not wasted time. That is where you get the reps.
What Actually Has to Change to Break Through the Ceiling?
Know that this is going to be challenging and there is going to be a lot of work involved… it is just not exactly the type of work that you are thinking about.
It is challenging because the work is on you. You are going to have to change, you are going to have to evolve, and you are going to have to grow into a new version of yourself at every single step of the way. That is the journey, and that is the game.
Once you wrap your head around that and start focusing your energy on surrounding yourself with excellence and learning from as many people as possible, that is how you are going to succeed.
If you are sitting in meetings where you are the most prepared person in the room and still not being treated like a peer, the gap is almost never your competence. It is the way you are communicating value at a level you have already outgrown.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the executive communication ceiling?
The executive communication ceiling is the point where the communication habits that earned you your current title become the reason you cannot earn the next one. It shows up as strong performance paired with stalled advancement, because the leader is still communicating value the way they did one or two levels below.
How does communication change from manager to director?
A manager communicates the value of the work they personally deliver, while a director has to communicate the value created through other people. That requires learning to teach rather than to do, and it requires building a team strong enough to operate without daily intervention.
What skills do you need to move from director to vice president?
You need business acumen outside of your own function. That comes from building genuine relationships with other business unit and functional leaders, understanding how their operations actually work, and finding ways to solve their problems so you gain exposure to the interconnects across the business.
Why do executives need to understand a P&L?
Reading a P&L is the entry requirement, not the goal. C-suite conversations center on what drives each element of the financials, how customers move from marketing through sales and delivery to invoicing, and how cash flow is managed, so an executive who cannot speak to those drivers cannot contribute as a thought partner.
How long does it take to go from manager to the C-suite?
In my experience the climb takes roughly fifteen years, varying with your strength across domains and how many companies you move through. Promotions that compress that timeline into a year or two frequently produce leaders with outsized egos and genuine skill gaps, simply because they never had enough time in the seat at each level.
Does a C-suite executive really need a public online presence?
You can reach the C-suite without one, and executives who have spent decades at a single company often do. The risk shows up if they are ever exited from that company, because they have no external network, no visibility and no established brand to fall back on.
Work With Sean
I spent about 25 years in corporate America across IT, HR, ESG, safety and transportation, went through 48 acquisitions and two IPOs, and started off as the introverted IT guy before stepping into executive leadership. Now I work with directors and senior leaders who are ready to close the gap between how well they perform and how they are perceived.
If you want executive advocacy in your corner to help you break through your own communication ceiling faster, let’s have a conversation.
Check out episode 297 on The Executive Communication Ceiling on YouTube.
