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\n\t\tOpinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.\t<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Meta began laying off roughly 8,000 employees<\/a> as part of a restructuring the company described internally as \u201cAI native,\u201d flattening its management layers and reorganizing teams into smaller, faster-moving pods. The company\u2019s Chief People Officer told staff that many teams could now operate with a leaner structure and fewer managers<\/a> overseeing more ownership per person. The management layer itself was being redesigned out of the org chart, regardless of how those managers had performed.<\/p>\n That should give any leader pause before promoting their next star performer into a management role. There used to be room to get a promotion wrong. A struggling new manager could be quietly reassigned, or the org chart could absorb one bad fit without much notice. That room is shrinking. When companies are actively cutting the number of management slots available, the ones that remain carry more weight \u2014 a mis-promotion can cost the team a layer of leadership it may not get another shot at building.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve coached executive teams across a dozen industries, and I see this mistake repeated more than almost any other. A company promotes its best individual performer into a leadership role, and performance drops on both sides. The star feels lost, the team feels misled, and nobody stops to ask the one question that would have prevented it: Is this person actually ready to lead the people who do the work, or are they just exceptional at doing the work themselves?<\/p>\n Those are two different things, and organizations routinely conflate them. Good work is rewarded with the wrong reward, or real leadership potential is promoted for the wrong reasons. Here\u2019s a framework for separating the two before you make the call:<\/p>\n Most companies test whether someone is talented enough to lead. Almost none test whether they want to. That gap matters more than it may seem. According to Gartner research published in Harvard Business Review, roughly one in four managers<\/a> say they\u2019d prefer not to be people managers at all, and most had little exposure beforehand \u2014 through simulations, mentorship or similar previews \u2014 to gauge whether the role actually suited them before they were promoted into it.<\/p>\n A high performer who says yes to a promotion is often saying yes to the recognition, not the job description underneath it. By the time anyone notices the difference, the team has already absorbed the cost. Before you promote, walk the candidate through what the role actually requires day to day \u2014 managing conflict, owning other people\u2019s failures, sitting in meetings instead of doing the work they\u2019re good at \u2014 and ask directly whether they still want it. If the honest answer is hesitation, that\u2019s information, not a red flag to ignore.<\/p>\n Most organizations treat promotion as their only lever for telling someone they matter, and that\u2019s the root of the succession trap. James Deng, CEO of Pok\u00e9 House, has run into this firsthand while scaling the fast-casual restaurant chain. \u201cI\u2019ve learned that you have to separate recognition from promotion,\u201d Deng told me. \u201cSometimes the right answer is to pay someone more, give them more ownership or find another way for them to grow without putting them into a role that doesn\u2019t fit them.\u201d<\/p>\n Deng put the stakes even more plainly: \u201cThe goal shouldn\u2019t just be to move your best people up. It should be to put your best people in positions where they can continue to be their best.\u201d<\/p>\n I coach leaders to run one exercise before finalizing any promotion to a leadership role, which is to give the candidate a real decision \u2014 one with actual stakes \u2014 and let them own it while they\u2019re still an individual contributor. Not a hypothetical. A live budget call, a hiring decision, a conflict between two team members that needs resolving. Watch what they do when the answer isn\u2019t obvious.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen candidates who were flawless at the technical work freeze the moment the decision required trading off one person\u2019s needs against another\u2019s. And I\u2019ve seen quieter performers step into that same test with a clarity that told me everything I needed to know. The work reveals whether someone can execute. This exercise reveals whether they can lead. Run it before the promotion, and you\u2019ll know which one you\u2019re actually looking at.<\/p>\n The exercise above sorts candidates into two groups: the ones who are ready now and the ones who aren\u2019t. The second group is where most leaders get it wrong. Not every \u201cnot ready yet\u201d is a \u201cno.\u201d Some candidates genuinely want the role and show real flashes of the judgment it requires, but they just haven\u2019t built the muscle yet. That\u2019s not a disqualifier. It\u2019s a development plan with a measurable payoff. <\/p>\n Gallup found that frontline supervisors who completed supervisor-focused training in the past year were 79% more likely to be engaged<\/a>, 19% less likely to report frequent burnout and 11% less likely to be job hunting.<\/p>\n That gap between trained and untrained supervisors is the whole argument for treating readiness as something you build, not something you check for. Too many leaders treat it as a light switch anyway: on or off, promote or pass. It\u2019s not. Give that candidate a mentor who\u2019s already done the job. Hand them a slice of real leadership \u2014 a hiring decision, a budget call or a project of their own \u2014 while they\u2019re still an individual contributor, so the stakes stay contained and the learning stays real.<\/p>\n Do this well, and you\u2019ve de-risked the promotion before you\u2019ve made it. Skip it, and you risk losing your best performer twice, once as an individual contributor and once as a manager.<\/p>\n These checks take an afternoon, while a bad promotion takes months to unwind, if it gets unwound at all. That math used to be forgiving, but it isn\u2019t anymore. As companies keep cutting the number of management layers they\u2019re willing to carry, every remaining seat becomes a decision with less room for error and fewer places to hide a wrong one.<\/p>\n Your best performer might still be exactly the leader you need. But \u201cexceptional at the job\u201d and \u201cready to lead the people doing it\u201d are two different measurements, and only one of them shows up in a performance review. Getting succession right starts with refusing to assume the two are the same thing \u2014 and testing for both instead.<\/p>\n The next time a seat opens up, don\u2019t ask who\u2019s earned it. Ask who\u2019s ready for it. Then find out if the answer is the same person.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Earlier this year, Meta began laying off roughly 8,000 employees<\/a> as part of a restructuring the company described internally as \u201cAI native,\u201d flattening its management layers and reorganizing teams into smaller, faster-moving pods. The company\u2019s Chief People Officer told staff that many teams could now operate with a leaner structure and fewer managers<\/a> overseeing more ownership per person. The management layer itself was being redesigned out of the org chart, regardless of how those managers had performed.<\/p>\n That should give any leader pause before promoting their next star performer into a management role. There used to be room to get a promotion wrong. A struggling new manager could be quietly reassigned, or the org chart could absorb one bad fit without much notice. That room is shrinking. When companies are actively cutting the number of management slots available, the ones that remain carry more weight \u2014 a mis-promotion can cost the team a layer of leadership it may not get another shot at building.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve coached executive teams across a dozen industries, and I see this mistake repeated more than almost any other. A company promotes its best individual performer into a leadership role, and performance drops on both sides. The star feels lost, the team feels misled, and nobody stops to ask the one question that would have prevented it: Is this person actually ready to lead the people who do the work, or are they just exceptional at doing the work themselves?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n1. Ask if they actually want the job<\/h2>\n
3. Test decision-making before the title changes<\/h2>\n
4. If they want it and could grow into it, coach them first<\/h2>\n
Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n
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