You networked like a lunatic. You kept your eyes and ears open, and you came up with the totally original synthesis that propelled you into the front ranks of leadership. And then you got bogged down in the perpetual politics of implementation and started to dissipate all of that accumulated wisdom. And because you were so damn busy doing, you stopped learning. You became a broken record for yesterday's paradigm.
Leaders work double overtime to keep it from happening.
Learn fast, or get left behind fast. Leaders know when to leave. Much good work gets undone by those who stay beyond their expiration dates. And it's not just baseball players who do this. It's also CEOs of megacorps.