The Unlearning Curve No One Prepares You For

By Marsha Koelmel, President of Catapult

Recently, I facilitated a panel discussion with a group of newly promoted CEOs. As part of the conversation, I posed a simple question:

“What did you have to unlearn in order to be successful in your new role?”

The responses were thoughtful, candid, and strikingly consistent.

Not one of them talked about technical gaps, industry knowledge, or learning a new playbook. Instead, they spoke about behaviors, deeply ingrained habits, that had once fueled their success and now required deliberate letting go.

It was a powerful reminder of something we don’t talk about nearly enough in leadership transitions:

Promotion to the C-level doesn’t just expand scope. It fundamentally changes the definition of success. And the hardest part of that change is not learning more, it’s unlearning what no longer serves.

The Unlearning Curve No One Warns You About

As an executive coach to CEOs and other C-Level leaders, these are the unlearning curves that my clients are often working through:

1. Being the Smartest Person in the Room

Most executives are promoted because of judgment, expertise, and answers.  CEOs and C-Suite executives are effective not because they know the most, but because they create clarity, ask better questions, and synthesize competing perspectives.  What once made you valuable, having the answer, can quietly limit your team’s capacity to lead.

2. Working in the Business

Being close to the work feels responsible. It feels safe.  At the executive level, it often creates confusion, slows decision-making, and unintentionally undermines other leaders.  Your presence now carries weight.  What you attend to signals priorities, intentionally or not.

3. Over-Explaining

Many leaders develop a habit of exhaustive preparation and over explaining.  At the C-Suite and CEO level, confidence comes from clarity, not completeness.  Over-explaining can unintentionally dilute authority. Precision matters more than volume.  Practice making your point clearly and concisely in no more than 2-minutes.

4. Consensus as Leadership

Collaboration is essential. Consensus is not always possible.  Executive level leadership requires decisiveness with imperfect information and the willingness to disappoint in service of long-term outcomes.  If everyone agrees, you probably waited too long.

5. Being Liked

This one is rarely said out loud.  Respect, trust, and credibility, not approval, are the currencies of effective CEOs and C-suite executives.  Trying to preserve harmony often delays the very decisions your organization needs you to make.

6. Heroic Leadership

Fixing, rescuing, stepping in, it feels noble. It’s also addictive.  Heroic leadership may deliver short-term wins, but it prevents the organization from building depth and resilience.  If the CEO keeps saving the day, the organization never learns how to lead without them.

Why Unlearning Is So Hard

Unlearning isn’t about skill gaps.  It’s about identity.  These behaviors are often the ones that earned promotions, reinforced confidence and differentiated you from peers.  Letting them go can feel like erasing part of yourself.  Executive-level leadership requires a shift from personal excellence to organizational excellence, from individual contribution to collective capability.

So, What Can Leaders Actively Do to Make This Transition?

Insight alone isn’t enough. The most successful CEOs approach unlearning intentionally.  Here’s what makes the difference:

1. Name What Must Be Let Go

Ask yourself, and invite trusted feedback around this question:  What behaviors made me successful in my last role that may now be limiting my effectiveness?  Unlearning starts with awareness.

2. Create a Feedback Loop You Don’t Control

Boards, executive teams, and external coaches often see patterns before the CEO does.  The leaders who transition well don’t just accept feedback—they design for it.

One of the most effective ways CEOs do this is by partnering with their Boards to define success clearly and build a high-value CEO evaluation process. When expectations, metrics, and feedback are aligned, evaluation becomes a source of clarity and growth—not judgment.

3. Practice Strategic Absence

Sometimes the most powerful move a CEO can make is not being in the room.  Absence creates space for others to step up, for systems to work, for leadership to scale.

4. Redefine Success for Yourself

High performers often carry an internal scorecard that no longer matches the job.  CEO success is less about personal contribution and more about organizational capability, decision quality, and leadership depth.

A Final Thought

The most effective CEOs and C-Suite executives are willing to confront a difficult question:

Which leadership habits helped me rise, which ones still fit into success in this role and which ones are now limiting the organization’s ability to scale?

Growth at the top is rarely about adding more. More often, it’s about letting go, intentionally, visibly, and with discipline.

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