4 reasons why people get stuck at Senior Manager

5 actions to get unstuck and breakthrough to executive

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Apr 08, 2025

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Why People Get Stuck at Senior Manager

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The bottom line is that if you are truly stuck there is a reason, and while you might move up given enough time, if you want to move faster you either need to fix something or change something.

Simply put, if you keep doing the same thing you will likely stay where you are.

Key Lessons

Top reasons why people get stuck at Senior Manager:
1. Too many Senior Managers
  1. Each major tech company has 5,000+ Senior Managers.
  2. Not enough high impact projects.
  3. Hard work and being smart is no longer enough (everyone is educated and hard-working).
2. Limited Executive roles
  1. Big projects need only one or two executives. When Ethan was VP of Amazon’s Appstore, he had an 800-person org and 3-4 Directors.
  2. A Director has 5-8 Senior Manager reports. Even at 1 new role per year (considered high growth or high turnover), you are still waiting 5-8 years.
3. Very different skills needed at the Director level
  1. Less about executing, more on setting strategic direction (company wide) and being right about it.
  2. Influencing / collaborating with other stakeholders (e.g. executives, teams, external partners).
4. (new trend) Flattening
  1. NVIDIA success and Jensen Huang’s flat org structure (he has 60 direct reports and doesn’t do 1:1s, he explains here).
  2. Popular rise in ‘Founder Mode’ (Airbnb Cofounder & CEO, Brian Chesky, explains why almost all CEO advice is wrong and what happened to Airbnb).
Five actions you can take immediately
1. Accept reality
  1. Stop dwelling (frustration is not helpful).
  2. Recognize quality of competition.
  3. Assess where you really stand.
  4. Make a plan.
2. Itemize your skill gaps
  1. Note your gaps at the next level and shift to strategic leadership.
  2. Shadow your boss.
  3. Get on a big complicated project (not as the owner) to see how things are done.
  4. Build valuable skills via a side hustle.
  5. Get on an outside board (Board of Directors at a startup, Customer Advisory Board at startup or non-profit). Key is to contribute to strategic decision making and work with diverse leadership stakeholders.
3. Win using your strengths
  1. People are promoted for outstanding strengths (that make a lot of money, beat competitors, or save a lot of money) and no crippling weaknesses.
  2. Create big wins from your strengths.
  3. Mitigate flaws and move on.
4. Be patient
  1. You only need 1-2 executive promotions in a 30+ career.
  2. Focus on skill growth (e.g. EQ, network, AI adoption, executive presence) and be ready for opportunities.
  3. “Be strategically patient and tactically impatient.” — Jeff Bezos
5. Invest in your professional development
  1. Get a coach.
  2. Take a course.
  3. The ROI is worth it (an executive promotion is worth at least $100K a year).

Key book, What Got You Here Won'T Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith (see all of Ethan’s recommended books).

Who is someone that could benefit from reading this article?

Stuck at Senior Manager - How to Break Through to Executive course

The next cohort starts April 26.

Ethan is teaching the course live for the first time in over a year and will include new content for the 2025 environment including a bonus module on 'How to Lead AI Adoption'.

We have 1,100+ alumni and the most recent cohort rated it 4.88/5 — here are their testimonials:

“Without exaggeration, this has been one of the most impactful and insightful learning experiences of my professional journey, already yielding tangible benefits and breakthroughs for my current role and has helped me in creating a plan of action for my long term career growth.”

- Senior Manager, Capital One

“If you’re in Big Tech, run—don’t walk—to take this course. I’ve taken 10+ Maven courses, and this one stands out because it’s all about tactical execution. No fluff, no vague advice—just real strategies that work. What you actually need is someone who’s transparent about how the game is played—and how to position yourself to win. Ethan delivers exactly that.”

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“Insightful and actionable strategies supported by real life examples, incredible opportunity to learn from Ethan and get thoughtful answers tailored to different situations and a great list of books for further reading, and an opportunity to network with great people!”

- Senior Principal Technical Program Manager, Oracle

If you are an IC, read about Jordan Cutler’s experience (Senior Software Engineer at Pinterest).

In the past weeks, leaders from Amazon, Airbnb, Google, Cisco, Meta, Confluent, Ernst & Young, Hertz, Atlassian, and more enrolled.

Explore the course page to see if it’s a fit for you.

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