Latest / Executive Careers with Fexingo: VP, C-Suite, and Senior Leadership Career Strategy / How Senior Leaders Use the Career S-Curve to Time Their Next Move
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, I've been thinking about a pattern I see all the time with senior leaders. They stay in a role maybe two years past the point where they're still learning, still expanding their scope. And they can't quite explain why they stayed, except that everything felt comfortable. Luna: It's the golden handcuffs problem, but not just financial. It's intellectual comfort too. You know the work inside out. Lucas: Right. And that's where the career S-curve framework becomes a practical tool rather than just a theory. The S-curve—familiar from product adoption or technology cycles—applies directly to how we grow in a role. There are three distinct phases: the launch, the inflection, and the plateau. Luna: Launch is when everything is new. You're learning the org, the stakeholders, the unwritten rules. It's slow, sometimes frustrating. Lucas: Exactly. In that first phase, your contribution is low relative to effort. You're building context. Then comes the inflection point—that steep upward slope where your understanding compounds. You start seeing patterns, making faster decisions, delivering results. That's the sweet spot. But then, inevitably, you reach the plateau. Mastery sets in. You can do the job in your sleep. Luna: And that's the trap. Because mastery feels great. You're the go-to person. But your rate of learning has flatlined. Luna: Eighteen months. And she was still delivering strong numbers. Her board was happy. But internally, she was bored. That's a dangerous place for a senior leader, because boredom leads to complacency or, worse, to making risky moves just for stimulation. Lucas: So she acted. She left the COO role to become CEO of a smaller, high-growth tech firm. That was a deliberate step back to the bottom of a new S-curve. She traded the plateau for a new launch phase, knowing she'd have to rebuild context from scratch. Luna: That takes real self-awareness. Most executives I know would rationalize staying. 'The comp is good,' 'The team is solid,' 'I still have influence.' But the S-curve is a honest mirror. Lucas: It is. And here's the practical part. You can assess where you are on your own curve with three questions. First: am I learning something new every week that changes how I work? Second: am I being asked to solve problems I've never solved before? Third: is my scope still expanding, or am I refining the same territory? Luna: That third one is brutal. Because if you're just refining—optimizing processes you already understand—you're on the plateau. And the data backs this up: studies on executive career satisfaction show that learning velocity is a stronger predictor of long-term engagement than compensation or title. Lucas: There's a corollary here for organizations too. Smart boards and CEOs should be having S-curve conversations with their top talent. Not just 'are you hitting your numbers?' but 'are you still growing in this role?' Because if you wait until the executive is already disengaged, you've lost them. Luna: Or they've lost themselves. I've seen senior leaders plateau for years and then struggle to reinvent because their identity is too tied to the role. The S-curve gives them permission to leave before they're pushed by boredom. Lucas: So the framework is simple: map your own curve, identify your inflection point, and make a move while you're still on the upward slope—not after you've flattened. The best time to look for a new role is when you're performing well and learning fast, not when you're desperate to escape. Luna: That's a counterintuitive point. Most people job-hunt from a place of dissatisfaction. But the S-curve says: hunt from a place of strength. Lucas: Exactly. One VP of marketing I worked with did this. She was at a large consumer goods company, crushing it. But she realized her learning velocity had slowed. So she started networking, not urgently, but strategically. Within six months, she landed a CMO role at a direct to consumer startup. She left at her peak, and her old company gave her a glowing reference because she'd given them plenty of notice and transition time. Luna: That's the ideal scenario. And it's rare. Most senior leaders leave in a rush, burning bridges or leaving on bad terms because they waited too long. Lucas: One nuance worth mentioning: the S-curve doesn't apply only to roles. It can apply to projects, to functional expertise, or even to entire career stages. You might be in a role that still has learning potential in one dimension but not another. The key is to isolate which curve matters most for your long-term trajectory. Luna: So a CFO who's mastered financial reporting might still be learning in the strategic M&A space. That's worth staying for—if the curve is still climbing on that dimension. Lucas: Right. And that's where the framework becomes a diagnostic tool instead of a rule. It forces you to get specific. 'I'm not learning about X anymore, but I am learning about Y. Is Y valuable enough to keep me here?' Most people never ask that question explicitly. Luna: This reminds me of something. You mentioned the COO earlier. Was there a specific metric or moment that made her realize she'd plateaued? Lucas: She told me it was a board meeting. She presented a quarterly update, and she realized she'd given essentially the same presentation three quarters in a row. The numbers were better, but the narrative hadn't changed. She was saying the same things in the same way. That was her signal. Luna: That's a powerful self-diagnostic. If you can predict your own talking points before a meeting, you're probably not learning. Lucas: She also tracked how many new concepts she encountered per month. Early in her tenure, it was dozens. By year three, it was maybe one or two. That's a quantitative way to measure learning velocity. Luna: I want to bring this back to the listener. If someone is in a senior role today, what's the one action they can take this week to assess their S-curve position? Lucas: I'd say: write down three recent problems you've solved. Were they novel or familiar? Then ask a trusted colleague or a mentor to give you honest feedback on whether you seem energized or just competent. Sometimes an outside perspective sees the plateau before you do. Luna: That's solid. And if they realize they are on a plateau, what then? Do they have to leave immediately? Lucas: No. The S-curve doesn't mandate a move; it just reveals the reality. Some people are content on the plateau—they want stability, they have other priorities. That's fine. But if your career growth is a priority, the curve tells you to start planning. Give yourself a timeline, say six to twelve months, to find a new challenge, whether inside the company or outside. Luna: And if you're the one hiring, the S-curve is useful for evaluating candidates too. You want someone who's coming off an inflection, not someone who's been plateaued for years and is just looking for a change of scenery. Lucas: That's a great point. A candidate who can articulate their own S-curve—'I left because my learning velocity dropped'—shows self-awareness and strategic thinking. That's a strong signal. Luna: You know, this conversation has me thinking about my own career. I've been in this podcast role for a while, and I'm still learning every episode because of the variety of topics. But I should probably check in with myself more formally. Lucas: Same here. We talk about these frameworks, but applying them to ourselves is always harder. That's why I find it useful to have a conversation like this—it forces reflection. Luna: Honestly, if this episode helped you think more clearly about your own career curve, that's exactly what we hope for. And if it was worth a coffee to you, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That little bit of listener support is what keeps Executive Careers ad-free and focused on content like this. Lucas: Yeah, we really appreciate it. And it's completely optional, of course. We're just grateful you're here. Luna: Alright, back to the S-curve. One other application I want to touch on: the S-curve can also help you decide when to take on a stretch assignment versus when to leave for a new company. Lucas: That's a key fork in the road. If the curve is flattening but your organization offers a new challenge—a new division, a special project—that can reset the curve without changing employers. But if the entire organization is in a mature phase, no amount of internal shuffling will reignite that steep slope. Luna: So the S-curve of the organization itself matters. A fast-growing company naturally offers new learning opportunities. A mature, stable company might not, even if the role is new. Lucas: Exactly. That's why the best career moves often happen when you align your personal S-curve with an organizational S-curve that's also in its inflection phase. That's where the magic happens—you grow with the company. Luna: We've covered a lot. Let's leave listeners with one final question to sit with: on a scale of one to ten, how fast are you learning right now? If it's below a six, it's time to investigate. Lucas: That's the right note to end on. Thanks, Luna. And thanks to everyone listening. We'll be back with another episode soon.