Why promoting your best performer without the right training, support, or desire to lead can set everyone up to struggle
Cheers to the capable!
Real talk. It’s the curse of the capable. We’ve all heard it. Those high performers at work are usually the ones that get the extra projects, extra tasks, and, in the case of this month’s newsletter, get promoted into leadership.
And that sounds great! You worked hard, you turned in excellent work, and you took on those extra projects. And most likely killed!
But Kristi, what can go wrong with promoting the capable? Promoting the good doers? Well, I’ll tell you newsletter friends… several things can go wrong when we promote those that are good doers.
We often times promote them and then don’t set them up for success.
For some reason, we get it in our heads that leading and “doing” utilize the same skill set. They are completely different skill sets. Most of it is trainable. But we don’t train them and leave them to figure it out for themselves. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t.
We often time promote them and then don’t set them up for success.
Wait, you already said that. Same coin, different side. We ignore the fact that they newly promoted leader may now be supervising or managing those who were recently peers and co-workers. Equals. This transition is one of the trickiest and we typically don’t address this elephant or provide tools or training. Sometimes they navigate it effectively on their own and sometimes they don’t.
Let’s talk about another elephant that is a giant deal and is typically not explored before we move the doer into leadership. Sometimes they don’t want it.
Meet Mike. Mike approached me two days after I started a new role at a manufacturing plant. The first words out of his mouth were “You’ve got to get me out of this leadership role”. You see, Mike was asked to step into an interim leadership role while the organization found a permanent solution. Mike was an excellent doer. And Mike did not like people. He liked goats. He lived on a goat farm and that was his passion. Because Mike liked goats (not people) and didn’t have a passion around leadership, he was not an amazing leader. He was grumpy. And when I started at that organization, he had been in his “interim” leadership role for 2 years. That’s. Not. Interim.
What do you do about these? Two offerings and options (although there are others). Train and one on ones. Provide training to your new leaders. Set them up for success. Give them the tools that the need. Not sure what those tools are? Ask seasoned leaders. Build a plan. And for the love, please have one on ones with your leaders. They need a dedicated, cadenced space to talk to you about their challenges, needs and development. This is your job! And you can’t set your people up for success if you don’t know the recipe for each on.
There are definitely other ways this goes wrong and other options to navigate. And my team will tell you all about it in their blogs this month. I hope they are helpful.
Happy end of Summer! I hope yours has been restful and smooth.
-Kristi