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Why career relevance matters much more than career progression
The real measure of a successful career is no longer how consistently we progress, but how consistently we remain relevant. The leaders who endure are those who continue creating value, regardless of changing titles, industries, or organizations.Â
Rapid read:
- Perhaps the question is no longer “Where do I want my career to take me?” but “What kind of leader do I need to become to remain relevant wherever the future takes me?”
- Daniel Lindgaard Breum’s story is ultimately not about robotics, renewable energy, or startups. It is about a different way of thinking about careers.
- What motivates us at 30 is often different from what motivates us at 45 or 55. Family circumstances change. Financial responsibilities evolve. Personal priorities shift.
For decades, executive careers were built on a simple promise: work hard, build expertise, move up the hierarchy, and eventually lead. That promise is quietly disappearing.
Despite this shift, many leaders continue to approach their careers as though success depends on following a carefully planned route from one role to the next.
Daniel Lindgaard Breum’s career suggests another possibility. His story is ultimately not about robotics, renewable energy, or startups, but about a different way of thinking about career progression.
Lindgaard Breum has moved across wind energy, satellite communications, data centers, and robotics, following opportunities connected less by industry than by curiosity.
Shortly after completing his Executive MBA at IMD in 2023, he left a comfortable leadership role at a large multinational to become CEO of TinyMobileRobots, a Danish robotics company that was unprofitable at the time. There, innovation cycles are measured in months rather than years.
“I have never had a plan, and still don’t,” said Lindgaard Breum during a recent career webinar. This was a pretty big decision, but one that reflected a different way of thinking about growth, driven less by a predetermined destination than by curiosity, challenge, and the opportunity to create value.
Curiosity is often misunderstood as a personality trait. Increasingly, it is becoming a professional capability. In environments where knowledge becomes obsolete faster than experience accumulates, curiosity is what allows leaders to continue learning before they are forced to.
Lindgaard Breum's approach has been to focus less on specific roles and more on the kinds of challenges he wants to solve.
Follow the challenge, not the title
Many executives are encouraged to think about where they want to be in five or 10 years. While there is genuine value in reflection, the reality is that careers rarely unfold exactly as expected.
Lindgaard Breum’s approach has been to focus less on specific roles and more on the kinds of challenges he wants to solve. “Instead of fixating on a job, a company, or even an industry, I focused on the kind of challenge that I would like to take on.”
He is careful to distinguish this from simply going where the wind blows. Reflection, he believes, is not the same as planning. “The reflective part, asking yourself what sort of challenge you would like to solve, what sort of environment you would like to work in, what sort of personality you have – these are deeply relevant questions.”
Perhaps one of the biggest career traps for executives is confusing progression with contribution. Titles describe where we sit in an organization. Challenges describe the value we create. The former can lose its significance remarkably quickly. The latter tends to follow us across industries.
Having that orientation helped him move between industries that many professionals would consider unrelated while continually expanding his perspective. Organizations often recruit leaders from within their own sectors, assuming domain expertise is the safest choice.
Lindgaard Breum takes a broader view. Some of the most valuable perspectives, he believes, come from leaders who bring experience from different industries, precisely because they are not limited by the assumptions of the existing one.
Moving into a robotics scale-up reinforced another lesson: in a fast-moving environment, waiting for perfect information is rarely possible. “The purpose is not to fail. The purpose is to figure out.” The ability to learn quickly, he argues, may prove more valuable than the ability to predict accurately.
Status is not the same as value
Perhaps the most significant lesson from Lindgaard Breum’s career emerged from a mistake he believes many executives make. Looking back on his early years at Vestas, he admits he became too focused on progression and status – specifically, on the number of people reporting to him.
At one stage, a senior leader reduced the size of his remit. At the time, Lindgaard Breum was deeply frustrated. Looking back, he recognized the leader had made the right call. Left unchecked, he said, burnout was only months away.
The decision prevented him from taking on more than he could sustainably manage, and taught him to separate his sense of self from the size of his role.
“I would like to have challenged my younger, 20-year-old self to be less absorbed with career progression and more absorbed with value creation.”
Many executives unknowingly outsource part of their identity to their business card. Promotions become validation. Larger teams become proof of progress. Bigger titles become evidence of success. Yet careers built on external validation often become fragile the moment circumstances change.
Today, he takes a different view entirely. “I wouldn’t let my identity lean on what my title is.” He does not believe the next promotion automatically belongs to him, nor does he see career disappointments as personal failures.
If someone else can create greater impact in a particular role, they should have the opportunity to do so. If he can create more value elsewhere, he should pursue that path.
Lindgaard Breum also challenges the idea that there is a single definition of success or a single right moment to take a risk.
Different stages of life permit different choices
Lindgaard Breum also challenges the idea that there is a single definition of success or a single right moment to take a risk.
What motivates us at 30 is often different from what motivates us at 45 or 55. Family circumstances change. Financial responsibilities evolve. Personal priorities shift.
He is direct about this: the move into a startup was possible at this stage of his life in a way it might not have been earlier, or might not be later. “Different periods of life allow you to pursue different goals and create value in different ways.”
The same applies to risk. At some stages, moving into a startup or pursuing an uncertain opportunity may feel right. At others, stability may matter more. Neither choice is inherently right or wrong; what matters is recognizing which season of life you are actually in.
His experience suggests that relevance comes from staying open to challenge, building self-awareness through reflection, and focusing consistently on where you can create the greatest impact.
“If you continue to do that,” he said, “there will always be opportunities for you.”
Organizations will continue looking for people who can help them solve problems they have never faced before.
A different way of thinking
Daniel Lindgaard Breum’s story is ultimately not about robotics, renewable energy, or startups. It is about a different way of thinking about careers.
He expects his own path to continue shifting, and sees that not as something to manage, but as the natural condition of a career lived with curiosity.
Perhaps the next generation of executive careers will be measured differently: not by how consistently we climb a predefined ladder, but by how effectively we continue to learn, adapt, and create value across changing contexts.
Careers may become less linear. Leadership may become less predictable. But one principle is likely to endure.
Perhaps the question is no longer “Where do I want my career to take me?” but “What kind of leader do I need to become to remain relevant wherever the future takes me?”
Organizations will continue looking for people who can help them solve problems they have never faced before.
Those leaders are unlikely to be defined by the industries from which they came. They will be defined by the value they are able to create wherever they go.
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