The Gap Between Good and Outstanding Is Smaller Than You Think

I was briefing a candidate last week. On paper, exceptional. 

A consulting career at one of the global firms, then a move into a chief of staff role at the global level, leading strategy and go-to-market across multiple regions. 

The kind of profile that makes you sit up.

But when he talked me through it, everything came out at 10,000 feet. 

“I led the functional strategy for the global business”. 

Fine. 

But what does that actually mean? 

What did you do?

So I asked him. 

How did you get that role? 

And it turned out that to even be considered, you had to be a top performer. 

Then you had to pitch for it. 

Present your vision, your plan, your case for what the function should become. 

He earned his way in. That tells me a lot.

But he had not said any of that until I pulled it out of him.

The Difference That Matters

There is a world of difference between two statements that can sound almost identical in a conversation

“I delivered a transformation programme.”

“I spotted the problem, built the case, and launched the programme.”

The first says you are competent. You can execute. Someone pointed you at a problem and you dealt with it. That is valuable, but it is not what separates the good from the outstanding at senior level.

The second says something fundamentally different.

It says you saw what others missed. 

You did not wait to be told. You identified the gap, understood the impact, built a compelling argument, won over the stakeholders who needed convincing, and then made it happen. 

That is leadership.

When I am presenting a candidate to a board or a CEO, that distinction matters enormously. 

It is one of the first things I listen for, and one of the things that most candidates fail to articulate clearly.

Why Senior Candidates Undersell Themselves

This is not a confidence problem. 

Most of the people I work with are accomplished, self-assured leaders who have run large teams and delivered significant outcomes. The issue is one of habit.

When you have spent years operating at a senior level, you start to take the most impressive parts of your career for granted. The things that would make a hiring panel lean forward are the same things you have stopped noticing about yourself. 

You initiated a company-wide change programme? 

That was just a Tuesday. 

You convinced a sceptical board to back a new strategy? 

That was just part of the job.

But in the context of a search process, those details are everything. A hiring organisation is not just assessing whether you can do the work. They are trying to understand how you think, how you operate, and whether you will bring the kind of proactive leadership that moves an organisation forward rather than simply maintaining it.

What I Listen For

Over the years, I have developed an ear for the moments that matter. When I am speaking with a candidate, I am listening for a few specific things:

Origin. Did you identify the problem yourself, or were you handed it? 

Both can lead to excellent work, but the first tells me something about your strategic awareness and your willingness to step outside your remit when something needs doing.

Persuasion. How did you get buy-in? 

In most organisations, having a good idea is the easy part. Convincing the people who control the budget, the resources, and the political landscape to back your idea is where the real skill lies.

Stakes. What was at risk if you had not acted? 

The best stories have a clear before and after. If no one else saw the problem coming, that tells me you are operating at a level above your title.

These are not trick questions. 

They are the things that a well-prepared candidate should be ready to talk about with clarity and specificity. But the reality is that many are not, because no one has ever asked them to think about their career in quite this way.

A Practical Thought

If you are preparing for a senior-level conversation, whether that is with a search firm or directly with a hiring organisation, take twenty minutes and write down three to five moments in your career where you initiated something significant. 

Not where you delivered someone else’s plan.

But where you saw the opportunity or the problem before anyone else did and made something happen.

For each one, be ready to explain three things: what you noticed that others did not, how you built the case, and what happened as a result.

That exercise alone will change the quality of how you present yourself. 

Because when you walk into a room and someone asks what you have done, the difference between I delivered and I initiated is the difference between a candidate and a leader.

Behind the Scenes

This piece came from a real conversation I had last week. 

I was preparing a candidate for an interview and realised that everything impressive about his career was buried under generic language. 

He was not being evasive. 

He simply had not been asked to think about his experience in this way before. 

Twenty minutes of coaching transformed how he presented himself. 

That is a pattern I see constantly, and it felt worthy sharing.

If you are a senior leader considering your next move, or if you are an organisation looking for someone who will genuinely move the needle, I would welcome a conversation.

Chris Underwood

Adastrum Consulting

chris.underwood@adastrumconsulting.com