Why I Love Working With Brilliant Exceeders

There is a particular kind of person I was born to work with.

I call them brilliant exceeders.

You know who they are. They're the ones leading 40,000 staff. The twenty-year veterans who built empires through sheer force of intelligence, discipline, and an almost supernatural ability to outperform everyone around them. The CPOs. The CEOs. The senior executives whose names sit on succession plans for the very top roles in Fortune 500 companies.

They are extraordinary.

And they are often in extraordinary pain.

The Paradox Nobody Talks About

Here's what most people don't understand about high performers at this level.

The very strategies that made them exceptional are the same strategies that end up destroying them.

The hyper-vigilance that made them the smartest person in every room? It's now reading threat to every junior person they encounter.

The GRIT and relentless drive that carried them through decades of climbing? It's burning them out at the exact moment they should be stepping into their biggest role yet.

The perfectionism that produced flawless work? It's paralysing their decision-making, and alienating their teams.

Their success strategies have become their glass ceiling.

And nobody around them can see it. Because from the outside, these people still look like they're winning on all fronts, great roles, families, holidays, and yet they are feeling empty inside.

Why They End Up With Me

By the time a brilliant exceeder lands in front of me, things have usually escalated.

There's been an anonymous complaint. A failed promotion that shouldn't have failed. A team in revolt. A board quietly panicking. These are the kinds of crises that end careers.

They've tried everything. Executive coaches who gave them communication frameworks and 360-degree feedback. HR interventions. Performance plans. Leadership off-sites.

None of it worked.

Because none of it went deep enough.

What I've learned across two decades of working with executives and senior managers is that in every single case, their childhood patterns are running their boardroom challenges.

Every. Single. One.

The executive labelled a "bully"? She was a hyper-vigilant child who learned that controlling every outcome was the only way to stay safe.

The leader who couldn't stop micromanaging? He grew up in an environment where trust was dangerous, and he had to win no matter the cost.

The brilliant strategist who kept self-sabotaging before major promotions? She internalised a belief, decades ago, that visibility meant vulnerability.

These aren't performance problems.

They're survival patterns that have outlived their usefulness.

And I can see them. Instantly.

What Makes This Work Electric

This is why I love this work.

And I mean love it in the way that makes me feel like I'm doing exactly what I was put on this earth to do.

When you sit across from someone who has spent their entire adult life being the most capable person in the room, and you help them see the invisible pattern that's been running the show their whole life, something extraordinary happens.

Something shifts. Not intellectually. In their body. In their nervous system. In the way they breathe.

I live for that moment.

I've watched a man labelled a "bully" by his team be described as "so attuned" after a single session. He went on to be named one of the top twenty executives in a Fortune 500 company.

I've watched an executive ready to walk away from everything after a devastating failed promotion come alive again after our first session. Six weeks later, she'd landed a brilliant new role.

I've watched an executive so consumed by self-criticism she wanted to quit her dream role and leave the industry and start a farm. Instead, she was promoted. She's now in succession planning for CEO, and Chairs a prestigious international board.

That's not a coincidence. These results come effortlessly when root causes are identified and addressed.

They Don't Need Fixing. They Need Freeing.

What I adore about brilliant exceeders is that they don't actually need much.

They're not broken. They're not lacking in talent, intelligence, or drive. They have an overabundance of all of those things.

What they need is someone who can see past the armour.

Past the competence. Past the composure. Past the perfectly constructed professional identity.

Someone who can find the one thread that, when pulled, unravels the whole pattern.

Someone who isn't intimidated by their intellect. Who won't be seduced by their charm, or deflected by their defences. Who can match them cognitively, while simultaneously holding space for the vulnerability they've spent a lifetime hiding.

That's what my combination of psychology, law, leadership development, mediation, coaching, and two decades of doing this work allows me to do.

A Fortune 500 Director calls it "the Cridland Method" and teaches it to her teams years later.

Another director calls it "the Caryn Special."

I don't mind what they call it.

I care about what it does.

The Moment That Gets Me Every Time

There's a moment in this work I live for.

It's the moment when a brilliant exceeder, someone who has been white-knuckling their way through a career-defining crisis, someone who hasn't slept properly in weeks, someone who genuinely believes their career is over, suddenly sees the pattern.

They go quiet.

And then they say something like: "I've been doing this my whole life, haven't I?"

Yes. You have.

And now you don't have to anymore.

That's the moment their crisis stops being an ending and starts becoming their most profound leadership evolution.

That's the moment they stop exceeding and start leading consciously, intentionally, and magnetically, from a place of genuine authority rather than survival.

That moment is why I do this work.

That moment is everything.

Who They Become

The transformation isn't just professional. It can't be. Because the pattern was never just professional. Their family life and marriages are also transformed, and they enjoy life more, as they are more present.

Executives who led from fear start leading from clarity. People who controlled everything learn to trust.

Leaders who burned through relationships start building teams that would follow them anywhere.

They stop performing leadership and start embodying it.

And it happens really quickly, from the first session. Brilliant exceeders commit and implement immediately and so the results are guaranteed.

A Fortune 500 Director described it as "the most crucial leadership intervention I've ever had." Years later she is using the techniques more than ever in her role, and life has never been better .

That's the ripple effect of working with brilliant exceeders.

You don't just transform one leader.

You transform how they lead thousands. And those thousands of people go back home each night feeling well and energised, and positively impact their families and communities.

And that — to me — is the most meaningful work in the world.

Come with me. Let's go deep.

About the Author

Caryn Cridland is a business psychologist, lawyer, and mediator who transforms Fortune 500 executives' career-defining crises into conscious leadership breakthroughs through her proprietary Executive Evolution System.™ With two decades specializing in high-stakes workplace conflicts and leadership development, four degrees in psychology and law, she helps "brilliant exceeders" evolve from intellectual dominance to conscious leadership.

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