Even as kids, we have a simple template for professional success.

It’s all about moving up.

Get hired, work hard, get promoted, run things.

What we often don’t learn until much later in our careers is what that progression really means. And what parts of it aren’t for everyone.

The truth is that moving up almost always means doing less of what made you passionate about the hands-on work in the first place. But for those who love the tradeoff, advancing means scaling your impact in ways the hands-on work never could.

I faced this choice several times in my career, though not with equal clarity.

The first time, I saw it plainly. As a newspaper reporter, I knew that moving into an editor’s role wasn’t for me. Editors shape coverage in ways reporters can’t: broader influence, bigger impact. I understood that. I also knew it wasn’t what I wanted.

Years later, I missed the same transition. I held on to the hands-on work I loved: staying close to customers, shaping solutions, driving product decisions myself. What I didn’t see was that my job had changed. My value was no longer in doing the work. It was in creating the conditions for my team to do it consistently and at scale.

Only when I stepped back did I see how much the nature of leadership changes – and how much more it changes than most people expect.

Here’s how the job changes as you move up.

The manager’s job is to deliver. Get outcomes through a team. Great managers set clear priorities and build consistent execution. The failure mode: a busy team with unclear impact, usually because the manager is still too close to the work.

The director’s job is to align. Turn strategy into coordinated execution across multiple teams. Great directors align priorities, clarify responsibilities, and handle issues before they escalate. The failure mode: well-run teams that don’t add up to meaningful progress.

The VP’s job is to choose. Define priorities and allocate resources to the right problems. Great VPs maintain focused priorities and ensure execution maps to business outcomes. The failure mode: strong execution against the wrong priorities. Worse, too many initiatives diluting impact across all of them.

The SVP’s job is to scale decisions. Build the operating system that lets a large organization make good decisions consistently. Great SVPs establish clear ownership and cadence so decisions happen at the right level. The failure mode: becoming the bottleneck, an organization that can’t function without the executive’s personal involvement.

The C-level job is to define the game. Determine where the company competes and why it wins. Great C-level leaders set a strategic direction the whole company understands and make coherent, high-leverage bets. The failure mode: an internally consistent plan that doesn’t match the market.

Each step up is a different job. Most people don’t realize how different until they’re already in it.

For some people, that evolution is exactly what they wanted. For others, the distance from the craft turns out to be less satisfying than they expected.

The ladder is real. The tradeoffs at every rung are real. What’s optional is climbing it on autopilot.

This article first appeared on the Columbia University Coaching Collaborative website.