Open your calendar right now. How much of this week did you actually choose?
If you're in your first 18 months as a VP, most of it wasn't yours. You're still working the way you used to win — reviewing the spreadsheet, rewriting the deck, taking the escalation, fixing the thing your team could have fixed. You're operating at Director altitude with a VP title. The work you do is excellent. It's also the wrong work.
This is the transition nobody prepares you for. The skills that got you promoted — technical depth, relentless follow-through, personal ownership — are the exact defaults that make you below altitude in the seat. Your team routes decisions through you because you taught them to. Your calendar is full because you said yes. Your strategic impact is thin because your hands are still on the keyboard.
I coach newly-promoted VPs through that gap. Not with frameworks and worksheets. With a direct look at where your old wiring is still running the show, and a specific plan to unlearn it — week by week, decision by decision. Most of my clients are in their first year in the VP seat at Fortune 500 and $1B-revenue organizations. Technology, healthcare, financial services, industrials. The industry changes. The transition doesn't.
Eighteen years in executive seats myself. Certified through CTI. I've sat on your side of the desk — which is the only reason I have standing to tell you what your peers won't say out loud.
Before we talk, take the Ghost Score — a 10-question assessment that shows you where your old role is still running your decisions. It takes six minutes. It will be the most uncomfortable six minutes of your week.
