Common Pitfalls When Promoting Front Line Leaders
Your company is growing, and you find yourself stretched very thin. You’re pulled in multiple directions, working long hours just to keep up. Worse, some of your team members are waiting for direction. This is frustrating for them, unproductive for your business, and can ultimately affect your ability to deliver a great product or service, on time, to your customers.
It’s time for more leadership capacity in your company. In this post, we’ll focus on one common approach: promoting existing team members into front-line leadership roles.
Most often, the longest-tenured or most technically skilled employees are the first candidates considered for “supervisor” or “team leader.” They know the work well, have proven to be reliable, and usually have a strong working relationship with the owner. Their performance has demonstrated trustworthiness and capability.
There’s also a natural desire to reward these key contributors, people who excel in their current roles and have shown loyalty to the company, with the status and pay increase that typically comes with a leadership promotion. You appreciate them and their contributions, and you don’t want to offend them by promoting someone else to lead their area. After all, no one knows that part of the business better than they do.
These are understandable and well-intentioned reasons. They are also very common, and they come with a high rate of failure in practice.
Great leaders require a different set of skills than those needed to be an outstanding individual contributor. While it’s important for a front-line leader to understand the work, it’s not necessary for them to be the very best at doing it.
When assessing a team member’s readiness for a leadership role, ask yourself, and specifically interview them to determine, whether they demonstrate the following skills and abilities:
Listening. Do they genuinely want input from others, and are they good at listening to different perspectives? Strong leaders seek their team’s insights into what’s happening, how challenges can be addressed, and how processes can be improved. They may have ideas of their own, but they also value being informed by their team.
Communication. Do they want others to know what’s happening in their area, both good and bad? Leaders must keep their teams informed and aware of issues that may affect them or other parts of the business. They also need to communicate constructively with internal customers and suppliers when things don’t go as planned. Equally important, they must keep you appropriately informed so you can help when needed.
Decision-making. After listening to their team and coordinating with others who may be affected, are they willing to make a call? They must understand which decisions they are empowered to make, and which require your involvement. Leaders who avoid decisions don’t help you. They also need to take responsibility when outcomes differ from expectations and show a willingness to learn from mistakes.
A passion for teaching. Front-line leaders, especially those overseeing the core work of the business, must be committed to developing their people. They should demonstrate a desire to share what they know and a curiosity to keep learning themselves.
Humility. No one wants to follow a leader who acts like they know everything, even if they are a subject matter expert. Everyone has more to learn and will make mistakes. Is the potential leader comfortable acknowledging when they’re wrong?
These traits should be carefully evaluated when deciding whom to promote. I strongly recommend making your intention to promote someone public and inviting interested team members to raise their hands. Sometimes people step forward and, through conversation, reveal strong leadership potential you may not have seen before. Other times, you already know a person isn’t the right fit, but the discussion still reinforces your appreciation for them and may uncover insights that are valuable later.
Your team will value this kind of process. It demonstrates your commitment to getting leadership decisions right and gives you an opportunity to model the same five skills listed above.
When a clearly qualified candidate emerges and is promoted, your work isn’t done. You must invest in their success.
First, address any skill gaps they have in the new role. They may now need to schedule work, manage priorities, or access information that previously lived only with you. Walk through the role together, clarify expectations, and identify where development or training is needed.
Second, be extremely clear about decision-making authority. Spell out what they are empowered to decide and where you still need to be involved. Don’t assume anything is obvious. Over time, this authority can and should expand, but clarity upfront is essential. This is also a good opportunity to revisit company values and priorities of their area. How decisions are made when trade-offs arise between quality, schedule, and cost, for example.
Third, help them learn how to give feedback. Some new leaders are naturally comfortable with this; many are not. Avoiding feedback quickly becomes a problem. If this isn’t your strength or you don’t have time to coach them, invest in training. Role-playing is especially effective here. Practice matters, and you should be prepared to help them prepare for their first few feedback conversations.
Finally, let’s talk about some challenges you may encounter along this journey.
Your best technical or longest-tenured employee isn’t the right leader. You must be candid about why they weren’t selected, while clearly recognizing and appreciating their ongoing contributions. Reinforce your commitment to strong leadership for everyone and your investment in developing the person you did choose. Find ways, together with the new leader, to make it clear that this individual remains highly valued.
Only the “superstar” expresses interest. Others may assume the decision is already made or feel intimidated. Regardless, promoting the wrong person into leadership is guaranteed to fail and serves the team poorly. Encourage broader conversations and interviews. You may uncover additional candidates or learn about other issues that need attention.
No one demonstrates readiness to lead. This is the most delicate situation. Start by sharing what you learned and reinforcing how important good leadership is to you. Then be creative. Look across the company for potential candidates or open the opportunity more broadly. If needed, look outside the organization. While this extends the timeline, it’s far better than making a poor leadership decision.
The biggest takeaway is this: no amount of urgency, or fear of hurting someone’s feelings, should push you to promote someone into leadership who isn’t ready or isn’t the right fit. Few things are more disruptive to a team and a company than a bad leadership hire.