The Leadership Setup Problem: Promoting Without Preparing (Part 1)

The Pattern That Keeps Costing Us

You’ve seen it (or maybe lived it yourself):

A top performer gets promoted into leadership. They’re talented, driven, and deeply knowledgeable… and within weeks, they’re overwhelmed. Morale dips. Results stall. The team starts to struggle.

Everyone’s left wondering, What went wrong?

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
👉 We’re still promoting people based on performance—not leadership readiness.
And worse—once promoted, many get little to no guidance on how to lead.

They’re handed a new title, new responsibilities, and expected to figure it out on the fly.

It’s like tossing someone into the deep end and hoping their instincts kick in.

Why This Fails—Every. Single. Time.

Leadership is not a natural extension of individual success.

In fact, it requires a completely different skill set:

• Communicating vision instead of completing tasks

• Coaching others instead of doing it yourself

• Navigating conflict and ambiguity

• Building alignment, trust, and resilience across a team

Without preparation, new leaders often:

• Default to micromanagement

• Avoid hard conversations

• Burn out trying to do everything themselves

• Lose confidence—and sometimes their job

"Organizations often promote people to their level of incompetence.”
— The Peter Principle (and unfortunately, still relevant)

My Story

I worked for over 20 years at an amazing software company. I began when it was in startup mode and was with it as it scaled to a truly enterprise-level company.

That amount of change meant that everyone’s responsibilities and titles changed at least every couple of years. Before long, I was promoted to a first-level manager over about 5 people. Later job titles included Senior Manager and Director.

My first managerial position was small (as was the company). My manager had one-on-ones with me regularly, and shared resources that he felt would be beneficial to my development as a leader. I was also driven to learn and succeed, so I read as many books, blogs, podcasts, etc., as I could to learn the trade. All of this prepared me well for general leadership responsibilities. But one thing I neglected to do (and had not been mentored to do) was to leave the individual contributor tasks behind. This led to hindered scaling and me not having time to develop the people I led to become future leaders.

Other leadership roles were larger in scope with many more responsibilities. My managers in these positions assumed that - since I had been a reasonably successful leader in the previous positions - I would be just as effective if not more so in the new positions. This, unfortunately, was not the case. I had to learn the hard way how to balance things like company versus team needs, developing new leaders, work/life balance, effective executive communication, etc. There is no doubt that intentional mentoring and empowerment would have helped me learn these and other senior leadership skills much faster, as well as deliver increased value to the company and help to my direct reports much sooner.

The Cost: People, Performance, and Trust

As illustrated above this problem doesn’t just hurt the leader. It ripples outward and impacts the whole organization:

👎 High turnover

Great people leave when leadership fails them.

💸 Lost productivity

Time is wasted when new leaders lack direction.

💔 Broken trust

Teams lose faith when their manager struggles.

🚫 Missed potential

The promoted individual may have been a phenomenal contributor - until we set them up to fail.

So What’s the Fix?

It’s not rocket science. But it is intentional.

Here’s what works:

1️⃣ Prepare before the promotion – Leadership potential should be developed, not assumed.
2️⃣ Mentor in real-time – Support leaders as they learn to lead, not just during onboarding.
3️⃣ Clarify expectations – Define how success looks in their new role—don’t make them guess.
4️⃣ Create space for growth – Make it safe to ask for help, make mistakes, and build confidence.

The Bottom Line

Promoting someone is an incredible vote of confidence. But without preparation, it can become a burden instead of a boost.

💡 What if we stopped assuming leadership will “click” naturally and started coaching for it instead?

Let’s talk about what it looks like to develop confident, capable leaders before they’re in over their heads.

Join the conversation over on LinkedIn.

#LeadershipDevelopment #CareerCoaching #SuccessionPlanning #TeamAlignment #ExecutiveCoaching #CoachingForLeaders #StrategicLeadership