Fighting for Your Life in a New Role? Congrats — You're Doing It Right

"My hair is on fire."

A leader I respect said this to me recently about a new role she'd just stepped into. Some parts felt natural — hiring, developing her team. Others she was desperately trying to wrangle: forecasting her business, learning the language of a new industry and a new customer.

It struck me that this is the same story playing out across nearly every client I work with.

Another leader I know recently stepped into a big new role — new company, new industry, new scope, new everything. I watched up close as someone I know to be exceptionally capable struggled to feel competent. To borrow a metaphor that fits: they were trying to gain altitude in an environment where it felt like everyone else was already at cruising altitude.

The pattern is unmistakable. Talented, experienced leaders step into new roles and feel frazzled, a little behind, and — if they're being honest — like frauds.

The good news? They're not imposters. They're exactly where they're supposed to be.

There's a framework I come back to often with clients navigating this exact moment: the Four Stages of Competence. Once you understand where these feelings live in your growth journey, everything changes. You can release the anxiety, lean into the learning, and — dare I say — learn to love the discomfort. Because this stage is the single biggest catalyst for your growth. The leaders who travel furthest are the ones who stop fighting it and start using it as a competitive advantage.

The Four Stages of Competence

1. Unconscious Incompetence (Ignorance). You don't know what you don't know. You're still on the ground and everything feels fine. A lot of people spend their whole lives here, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you have a nagging sense that you're not maximizing your potential, chances are this is where you are — you just don't know it yet.

2. Conscious Incompetence (Awareness). You're airborne, but flying blind. You now know exactly what you don't know, and it's a lot. This is the hard one. This is where most people decide something is wrong with them. Everyone else seems to have it figured out. Someone must have let you in by accident.

3. Conscious Competence (Learning). You're breaking through the clouds. You can fly, but it takes real focus and deliberate effort. You're being recognized for your contributions and starting to feel the rewards of all that work. The altitude is improving and the view is opening up. Keep climbing.

4. Unconscious Competence (Mastery). Cruising altitude. You've arrived. This is second nature now — smooth air, clear skies. You notice others working hard to reach where you now live effortlessly. The investments you made at every earlier stage have paid off. Enjoy this season. And know that, like every great flight, it has a clear start — and eventually, a next growth edge, where you'll begin the cycle all over again.

The Thing Nobody Tells High Performers

The better you are, the harder Stage 2 hits.

You're not used to being bad at things. You've spent years — maybe decades — building mastery in your domain. Then you voluntarily blew it up by stepping into something bigger. Of course it feels like falling apart. You're rewiring your brain in real time.

There's a name for this stage, borrowed from the Kübler-Ross change curve used in change management: the valley of despair. If you're in it, that name probably feels about right.

How do you know you're here? You're acutely aware of everything you don't know. Everything that comes your way feels like a research project. You're looking things up constantly. You feel stupid, ashamed, like a fraud — like you've made a huge mistake.

I remember this feeling well.

And here's what I know to be true: you only reach this place if you're growing. If you never feel this way, you're not stepping into your full potential — you're coasting. The valley of despair isn't a sign that you made the wrong choice. It's proof that you made a brave one.

So you get to decide: ease or growth. Most high performers I know don't really experience it as a choice. They're wired for the climb.

The most powerful thing you can do in this stage is see yourself in the third person. Step back. Notice that you're in the valley of despair — not because something is wrong with you, but because you're exactly where every high performer has been. It's a rite of passage. A milestone. Celebrate it, then buckle up.

How to Survive Stage 2

Practice grace. It's normal to feel keenly aware of every shortcoming right now. Give yourself permission to not have it all figured out yet. That takes energy, time, and patience — especially with yourself.

Build your self-care toolkit, and actually use it. Your brain is working overtime. Early bedtimes, nourishing food, the people and activities that restore you. This is not the season to also run a marathon in every other area of your life.

Treat every challenge as a possibility. Missed an important policy? Now you get to learn it thoroughly. Have to build something no one has built before? You might be defining what comes next. Reframe the hard things — not as evidence of your limitations, but as the raw material of your expertise.

Celebrate progress over perfection. At the end of each week, write down: This week I learned. This week I completed. Next week I'm excited to tackle. Small wins compound, and bringing your awareness to them is what keeps you moving.

Find your people. A coach, a mentor, a peer who's been through it. Someone who can be in the boat with you right now isn't a luxury — it's a necessity. You aren't failing. You're growing. But you don't have to grow alone.

A leader I know was handed a capacity-planning problem nobody had solved before — in a space where AI had made every existing model obsolete overnight. He could have waited for someone to show him the way. Instead he leaned into the discomfort, built something from scratch, and delivered a framework that changed how his entire company thinks about headcount. That work became what he's most recognized for — and it started in the hardest season of his career.

If You're in It Right Now

Every leader I admire has been through Stage 2. Multiple times. The ones who grow fastest aren't the ones who avoid it — they're the ones who learn to love it. They understand that the success waiting on the other side is equal in measure to the discomfort they feel right now. Time spent in this stage isn't a setback. It's the true mark of the best in the game.

You're not failing. You're leveling up.

If this resonates and you're navigating a transition right now, I'd love to hear where you are in the journey. Reach out — let's talk about what the climb looks like for you.