Have you ever been blindsided when a promotion or opportunity went to someone else, even though you knew you were more qualified? You’re hitting every deadline, solving every problem, and being the reliable person everyone can count on. Yet somehow, you’re still not advancing.
If this sounds familiar, you might be caught in a trap that affects countless high-performing women in STEM: optimizing for usefulness instead of impact.
In this powerful episode of Lunch with Leaders, host Adaeze Ilooje-Udeogalanya explores a critical career insight through the story of Sarah, a high-performing professional who keeps getting passed over despite her exceptional work. Through Sarah’s experience and practical wisdom, Adaeze reveals why career stagnation often isn’t about capability—it’s about misalignment between what the system rewards and what we’ve been trained to optimize for.
This episode is essential listening for mid-career and senior women in STEM who are experiencing career plateaus despite exceptional performance. The insights shared could fundamentally change how you approach your career and finally break through the barriers that have been holding you back.
1. You’re Always Reliable But Rarely Recognized
Sarah’s story opens the episode with a scenario that will feel painfully familiar to many women. She’s the person everyone turns to when things need to get done. She’s reliable, thorough, and consistently delivers high-quality work.
But when promotion time comes, the opportunity goes to someone else.
The Reliability Trap
Being reliable sounds like a virtue, and in many ways it is. But Adaeze reveals how reliability can become a trap when it’s the primary way you’re valued.
The formula many of us were taught goes something like this: work hard, be reliable, be the one they can count on, and you’ll be recognized in due time.
This formula works beautifully early in your career. It helps you build credibility, earn trust, and establish yourself as someone who delivers. But at a certain point, this same formula stops producing returns.
Why Reliability Stops Being a Differentiator
Here’s what happens: at senior levels, reliability is assumed. Everyone at that tier is reliable, delivers quality work and can be counted on.
Reliability becomes table stakes rather than a differentiator.
When decision-makers are choosing who to promote, they’re not looking for who’s most reliable. They’re looking for who creates the most impact.
If you’re still optimizing for reliability while others are optimizing for impact, you’ll consistently be passed over despite being objectively more capable.
This isn’t fair. But understanding this dynamic gives you the power to change your approach.
2. Your Efforts Have Stopped Producing Expected Returns
One of the most frustrating experiences for high-performing women is when the strategies that once worked suddenly stop producing results.
You’re doing the same things that brought you success in the past and maintaining the same standards of excellence.
But somehow, the returns have diminished.
When the Formula Breaks Down
Adaeze explains that this isn’t about you suddenly becoming less capable or less valuable. It’s about reaching a point in your career where the rules have changed, but you’re still playing by the old ones.
Early career success comes from execution. From doing what you’re told extremely well. From being dependable and thorough and consistent.
Mid-to-senior career success comes from strategic impact. From making decisions that move initiatives forward. From shaping how critical priorities are approached.
These are fundamentally different skill sets that require different approaches.
The Misalignment Problem
Career stagnation at this stage is not a capability problem. It’s a misalignment problem.
You’re capable of creating significant impact. But you’re still operating in usefulness mode because that’s what you’ve been trained to do and what’s brought you success in the past.
The organization rewards impact. You’re optimizing for usefulness. That misalignment is what keeps you stuck, not any deficiency in your abilities or work ethic.
Once you understand this, the path forward becomes clearer. You don’t need to work harder or become more capable. You need to realign what you’re optimizing for with what the system actually rewards.
Discover how to identify this misalignment in your own career: Listen to the full episode
3. You’re “Over Leveraged and Under Positioned”
Adaeze introduces a powerful phrase that captures the exact situation many high-performing women find themselves in: over leveraged and under positioned. You’re doing a tremendous amount of work, solving complex problems and keeping critical operations running smoothly. The organization is leveraging your capabilities extensively.
But you’re not positioned for advancement.
What Being Over Leveraged Looks Like
Being over leveraged means the organization is extracting maximum value from your work while keeping you in your current role. They give you the hardest problems to solve or rely on you to handle the most complex situations. They trust you with mission-critical work.
All of this sounds positive, and in some ways it is. But there’s a hidden cost.
While you’re busy being maximally useful in your current role, you’re not being positioned as someone ready for the next level. You’re being positioned as indispensable where you are.
The Positioning Problem
Under positioned means that despite all your contributions, you’re not seen as a strategic leader. You’re seen as an exceptional executor.
Decision-makers think of you as the person who gets things done, not the person who sets direction. They value your reliability, not your strategic vision.
This positioning disconnect is what keeps you stuck. The organization benefits from keeping you exactly where you are, solving problems and executing flawlessly.
Moving you up would create a gap in execution that’s hard to fill. So unconsciously or consciously, the system keeps you in place.
4. You Don’t Know What Impact Actually Looks Like
Many high-performing women optimize for usefulness because they don’t have a clear understanding of what impact actually looks like at senior levels.
Adaeze provides specific clarity on this distinction.
The Difference Between Usefulness and Impact
Usefulness looks like:
- Completing assigned tasks efficiently
- Solving problems that come to you
- Being responsive and available
- Delivering high-quality work consistently
- Supporting others’ initiatives
Impact looks like:
- Connecting your work to organizational priorities
- Making decisions that move initiatives forward
- Reducing ambiguity for others
- Shaping how critical priorities are approached
- Driving outcomes that matter to leadership
Notice the difference in framing. Usefulness is reactive and supportive. Impact is proactive and strategic.
Why This Distinction Matters
When you optimize for usefulness, you’re essentially positioning yourself as a high-quality support function. You make other people’s jobs easier, which is valuable but not what gets you promoted to senior leadership.
When you optimize for impact, you’re positioning yourself as someone who drives organizational success. You’re not just executing the strategy; you’re shaping it.
This shift from reactive execution to proactive strategy is what separates mid-career professionals from senior leaders.
Learn exactly what strategic impact looks like at your level: Listen to Adaeze break this down
5. You’re Climbing the Wrong Hill
Adaeze introduces a powerful metaphor: many high-performing women are climbing the wrong hill in their careers. You’re working incredibly hard, making progress and getting better at what you do. But you’re climbing a hill that doesn’t lead where you want to go.
The Wrong Hill Metaphor Explained
Imagine you want to reach the peak of leadership success. You can see it in the distance. So you start climbing the nearest hill with determination and excellence.
Note that, you’re making steady progress up this hill, getting higher and working hard. By every measure of effort and execution, you’re succeeding.
But this hill—the hill of usefulness—doesn’t connect to the peak you’re trying to reach. It’s a separate hill entirely.
Meanwhile, others are climbing the hill of impact, which does lead to the peak. They might not be climbing as fast or as excellently as you are. But they’re on the right hill.
The Critical Question
This leads to the most important question Adaeze poses in the episode: What am I optimizing for—usefulness or impact?
This question cuts through all the complexity and gets to the core issue. If you can’t answer it clearly, or if the honest answer is “usefulness,” you’ve identified why you’re stuck.
The good news is that awareness is leverage, not a setback. Once you see clearly what you’ve been optimizing for, you can make a conscious choice to shift your focus.
You don’t need to abandon reliability or stop being excellent at execution. You need to add a strategic layer that connects your work to organizational impact.
The Call to Reevaluate Your Career Strategy
The episode concludes with a clear call to action: reevaluate how you’re operating your career and make necessary changes.
This isn’t about working harder. It’s about working more strategically.
What Reevaluation Looks Like
Start by honestly assessing how you spend your time and energy. How much of it goes toward being useful versus creating impact?
Look at your recent accomplishments. How would leadership describe them? As excellent execution or as strategic impact?
Consider where you position yourself in meetings and projects. Are you the person who executes decisions or the person who shapes them?
Making Necessary Changes
The changes required aren’t necessarily dramatic, but they are intentional.
Also, you might need to say no to some requests that keep you in execution mode so you can say yes to opportunities that position you strategically.
Likewise, it’s okay to shift how you communicate about your work, emphasizing the organizational impact rather than the execution quality.
You might need to advocate for projects that position you as a strategic contributor rather than accepting every assignment that leverages your reliability.
These shifts feel uncomfortable at first, especially if you’ve built your entire career on being the most reliable person in the room. But they’re necessary to break through to the next level.
Why This Episode Matters for Women in STEM
This episode addresses a pattern that’s particularly common among women in STEM fields. Technical expertise combined with socialized tendencies toward being helpful and reliable creates a perfect storm for getting stuck in the usefulness trap.
Women in STEM are often some of the most capable, hardworking professionals in their organizations. They deliver exceptional results, solve complex problems and keep critical systems running.
But these strengths become limitations when they’re not paired with strategic positioning and impact focus.
What You’ll Gain From Listening
By listening to the complete episode, you’ll discover:
- How to recognize whether you’re optimizing for usefulness or impact
- Specific strategies for shifting from execution to strategic contribution
- Why the formula that worked early in your career stops working at senior levels
- How to avoid being over leveraged and under positioned
- What organizational impact actually looks like at leadership levels
- Practical steps for repositioning yourself without abandoning your strengths
- Why awareness of this dynamic is the first step to breaking through
This isn’t generic career advice. It’s targeted wisdom for a specific challenge that affects high-performing women at a specific career stage.
If you’re mid-career or senior, experiencing a plateau despite exceptional performance, this episode will help you understand why and what to do about it.
Break Free From the Usefulness Trap
Sarah’s story doesn’t have to be your story. The career plateau you’re experiencing isn’t permanent, and it’s not a reflection of your capability.
It’s a signal that you’ve outgrown the optimization strategy that brought you this far. What got you here won’t get you there.
Your technical skills, your reliability, your work ethic—these are all valuable. But they need to be redirected toward creating strategic impact rather than just being maximally useful.
If you want to transform your career today: Listen to the complete episode with Adaeze.
