The Leadership Transition: Unlearn, Relearn, Lead Better

Imagine you are in a room with forty senior executives. You cannot speak. You cannot gesture. Your only tool is a handwritten note to communicate, and whether you succeed depends entirely on who you know, and who knows you.

This is the alphabet game, and for Carmen Tan, Area Vice President at Gartner, it was one of the most arresting moments of her time on INSEAD's The Leadership Transition programme. “The power of understanding the network dynamic,” she says. “To know who I can seek help from, who I can actually lean on directly or indirectly." What made it land so powerfully was how faithfully it mirrored the network dynamics she navigates every day in enterprise sales at Gartner: the invisible architecture of influence, access, and collaboration that determines who moves fast and who stands still.

With close to thirty years in sales and marketing, Carmen had built a career most would consider comprehensive. Promoted steadily through the ranks at Gartner, she had been leading teams since 2020, navigating the sales organisation through the uncertainty of the pandemic years and out the other side. Yet somewhere in that success, a quieter question had begun to surface. 

Two answers came into focus: broader international exposure, and an honest assessment of where her leadership stood and where it needed to go. "I would like to understand where I am in terms of my current leadership skill set, where I should be looking at as a senior leader, and what are the gaps that I can address." Exploring several institutions before settling on INSEAD, Carmen’s route in was not the one she had originally planned — she had applied for a different programme, but when an advisor proposed The Leadership Transition as the stronger fit for her career stage, she kept an open mind. It proved to be the right call.

Stepping into INSEAD Fontainebleau campus for the first time was memorable in ways she had not anticipated. She found herself one of only two Asian participants in her intake, and among a minority of women. "I don't feel myself being outcast — in fact, I think I'm very blessed that this particular intake of participants are all very inclusive," she recalls fondly. "You get to know one another; you talk about one another's culture beyond the course. You also learn more about each other's roles and challenges."

The classroom itself offered its own revelations. From the outset, programme director Professor Jennifer Petriglieri set a tone that challenged even the most seasoned participants. The invitation to unlearn and relearn is not always a comfortable one for senior executives, and Carmen observed Jennifer navigate the room's more vocal dissenters with considerable skill. 

The substance of what Jennifer taught has stayed with her. Understanding power structures within an organisation, knowing who holds influence and how decisions actually travel, became a framework Carmen now applies instinctively. Combined with network dynamics, personality and career questionnaires, and the guidance of INSEAD's expert coaches, the programme gave her a richer understanding of her own leadership style and a sharper ability to work with those whose instincts differ from her own.

The timing of her participation in The Leadership Transition would prove significant. Just as she was completing the programme, Carmen was promoted to lead Gartner's Singapore region, inheriting an expanded portfolio and a team spanning more than five nationalities. The frameworks she had absorbed, the career questionnaire, the network dynamics, the alphabet game she brought back and ran with her own associates, all of it found immediate application. She had invested in herself at precisely the right moment. 

The programme's impact, however, was not confined to frameworks and tools. It also held up a mirror. Carmen had always been, by her own admission, a protective manager. The instinct came from a good place, a genuine investment in her people, but she came to recognise it as a ceiling, for them and for her. She reaches for a familiar analogy: "I am just like a mom! Overly protective parents will make sure the kid will never fall down. But actually, a more productive way to let children learn how to walk is really to let them fall a few times. And be there for them."

She returned from the programme to a bigger team and a broader remit, and resisted the urge to step in. Instead, she spent the first three months observing how her managers worked with their own associates before drawing them aside individually to reflect and coach. “What do you think of what you have actioned? If given a chance, how will you do this differently?” — coaching from the side lines, she calls it. The feedback, and the growth, landed better that way.

For those weighing whether the programme is right for them, Carmen is characteristically direct. "As a senior leader, if you truly want to learn and develop new competency that will support your ambitions, this is the course. This course allows you not only to understand yourself better and identify areas to improve, but also to know more about others' working style and career aspirations.”