“I work harder than anyone on my team. I’m always available. I haven’t taken leave in a year. But I keep watching peers move ahead.”
A Senior Manager shared this with quiet frustration.
I asked what made his peers different.
Long pause.
“They’re not putting in the hours I am. But somehow… they deliver similar results. And their teams function even when they’re not around.”
Here’s what he was starting to see — Working overtime doesn’t always mean moving up faster.
The pattern we observe:
Professionals often equate overwork with visibility or value.
→ “I’m always available”
→ “First in, last out”
→ “Haven’t taken leave”
Sometimes it gets noticed. Often, it just gets you more work.
This doesn’t mean long hours aren’t valued — they often are, especially early in your career or in demanding environments.
As you move into mid-to-senior levels, the supposed to game change.
Leadership starts looking beyond effort — to effectiveness, scalability, and readiness for bigger scope.
At mid-to-senior levels, leadership evaluates differently:
They ask, “Can this person handle larger scope without becoming a bottleneck?”
Not, “Who’s putting in the most hours?”
When you’re working significantly longer for similar outcomes, leadership may read it as:
→ Difficulty prioritizing or delegating
→ Struggling to manage the current role, leaving no bandwidth for next-level initiatives
→ High burnout risk under pressure
→ Too critical to execution (which limits scalability)
The uncomfortable reality:
You can overwork your way to recognition. But you can’t outwork your way to beyond.
At some point, the real question becomes: Can you scale?
The shift isn’t about working more or less — it’s about working differently:
→ Delivering outcomes while building team capability
→ Creating processes that reduce dependency on you
→ Taking strategic leave to test if systems hold
→ Freeing bandwidth to contribute to next-level work
Yes, politics and timing matter.
But if leadership sees you as maxed out at your current workload, even strong sponsorship can’t position you for more.
The principle:
Impact > Hours (when outcomes are comparable)
Systems > Heroics (when scaling matters)
Bandwidth > Burnout (when growth is the goal)
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