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The candidate seems perfect.
He has everything you need for this top position: competence, success, network.
The chemistry is right too.
The board contract is as good as signed.
He has already had a personal conversation with the chairman of the supervisory board.
But then the inexplicable happens: the flow of conversation stalls and dries up.
The company is apparently withdrawing.
The headhunter does not answer at first, later he gives strange reasons.
The CEO would "call back," it is said.
Weeks and months go by.
Nothing happens.
What happened here
And why?
The authors
Dorothea Assig
is a top management consultant.
Together with Dorothee Echter, she founded the international consulting company Assig + Echter Top Management Ambition.
Dorothee Echter
is a top management consultant and, together with Dorothea Assig, owner of Assig + Echter Top Management Ambition.
Both are also authors of the books "Freedom for Managers" (Campus, 2018) and "Ambition" (2012).
For some people things only go uphill from the start of their career.
You entered the career elevator immediately after graduating.
They stopped on every floor, looked around, worked hard, sometimes got on well with other people, sometimes worse.
You haven't made any mistakes worth mentioning, you've learned a lot and you will soon reach the next level of responsibility.
Your ascent is determined by great ability, relevant successes for your organizations and a resilient personality who makes quick changes, good contacts, many stays abroad and long working hours possible.
They cope with conflicts, problems, an ever greater range of leadership and increasing responsibility by learning and adapting.
Your performance will be rewarded with bonuses, promotions and privileges.
All dreams seem to be coming true.
But shortly before the appointment as a board member, chairman of the supervisory board or before the breakthrough in the world of media, consulting or science, the elevator door suddenly no longer opens.
Getting ahead seems impossible.
You stay in a waiting room with the feeling of "I'm good, why doesn't anyone recognize that?"
or the hope "I am good and that will be appreciated".
The usual explanations for the lack of further career step are: It is a coincidence that I am stuck or it is the fault of others who do not recognize my quality.
How else can it be explained that this incompetent colleague got the coveted post?
To make matters worse, all of a sudden your own psyche reports itself with the unprocessed hurts from the past: feeling excluded, always having to prove yourself or only receiving attention for extra achievements.
Those spurned find support and consolation from advisors or in the advice literature with sometimes simple attempts at explanations such as "bosses are narcissists", "that's just envy of success", "women have a harder time anyway" and so on.
Many great executives, successful entrepreneurs or excellent top managers get stuck with such explanations at this point.
Even those who did everything right lack comprehensible explanations for their ascent - for them their success behavior is self-evident.
Some then speak of ambitious goals that they have set and achieved with their team, others call it sheer luck to have come so far.
But what is the real secret of promotion to the top league?
This secret has so far remained hidden from most of them.
We are both top management coaches and have been advising the top league for over 20 years.
We decoded this process of the last mile before moving up to the top league.
With the knowledge that we present here, the breakthrough can be declared a great success and made realizable.
Without this knowledge, it will be impossible for many excellent top managers to get to the top.
The secret
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