57: Why Leaders Fail to Grow — Even When They’re Doing Everything ‘Right’

Build your own CTO Playbook at our website — the leadership platform built for the full CTO journey. Coaching, podcast, and community to help you lead with clarity, confidence, and strategic impact.

What if the very habits that once made you successful are now holding you back?

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Ravi Iyer, a physician, scientist, and leader with over four decades of experience in medicine, research, and hospital leadership. His work has taken him from studying molecular immunology at Harvard to serving as Chairman of a Department of Medicine, and his career has been driven by one relentless question: how do you make life work when it doesn’t?

We dig into why our brains cling to patterns, how those patterns can trap even the smartest leaders, and what it really takes to see beyond the “menu” of our past playbooks so we can actually taste the meal of life. This is a conversation about awareness, choice, and breaking free from default thinking, both in leadership and in life.

You’ll Learn:

• The real reason even accomplished leaders cling to outdated playbooks
• What happens when life stops matching the patterns you’ve always relied on
• The link between an amoeba’s behavior and human decision-making
• Why subconscious “choices” are actually compulsions in disguise
• How success can lock you into strategies that block future growth
• The two forces powerful enough to break a leader’s mental resistance
• Why chasing novelty can become just another limiting pattern
• The quiet damage of confusing the “menu” for the actual “meal” of life
• How to use sensory deprivation to break stale relational or leadership habits
• What it feels like to lead from the space that contains all your options

Timestamps:

[00:00] Introduction

[03:02] The lifelong question that shaped a career in science and medicine

[06:46] How pattern matching drives human behavior and decision-making

[11:41] Lessons from a grandfather on reframing problems and breaking patterns

[17:08] Why subconscious choices limit freedom and success

[24:54] How successful playbooks create plateaus in leadership growth

[28:01] The “menu vs meal” analogy and the search for real experience

[33:42] Using sensory deprivation to reset relationships and leadership habits

[39:24] Applying new data collection methods to break organizational patterns

[42:51] Why personal experience should guide your ultimate playbook

Get a FREE copy of Dr. Ravi Iyer’s digital books here.

If you want to connect more with Dr. Ravi, follow him on LinkedIn.

Find more from Adam on LinkedIn and YouTube, and check out Adam's CTO coaching company Synova Tech.