In brief
- “They earned it” is how most promotions get justified. It looks backward at the old job, not forward at the new one.
- The obvious promotion is the one nobody questions, which is exactly why it goes wrong.
- Four questions can tell you whether someone is ready to lead, not just whether they’ve done well.
When leaders explain a promotion, I usually hear some version of the same sentence: “They earned it.” Years of strong results. Loyalty. They’ve been waiting their turn. Everyone saw it coming.
Earning a promotion and being ready for one are two different things. “They earned it” answers the first question. Nobody asks the second.
That’s how companies end up promoting the behavior they never meant to reward. If someone hit their numbers by cutting corners with people, the promotion tells everyone watching that cutting corners is how you get ahead here. Every promotion is a message about what your company values, whether you meant to send it or not.
Before the next obvious promotion, ask these four questions.
1. How did they get their results?
Not what they delivered, but how. Talk to the people who worked next to them. Did coworkers seek them out, or work around them? Did they share what they knew, or hold onto it? Results achieved by stepping over people tend to get worse, not better, once that person has authority over them.
2. Do they already show the behaviors the next level needs?
The new role asks for something different. A manager needs to develop people, have hard conversations and make decisions others will live with. Look for those behaviors now, at the level they’re working today. Someone who already coaches the new hire without being asked is showing you something. Someone who’s never done it probably won’t start because of a title.
3. What would their team learn from watching them?
People copy their manager. Whatever this person does under pressure, how they handle mistakes, how they treat people when they’re behind, will spread through their team. Picture their team a year from now, working exactly the way they do. If that picture worries you, the promotion should too.
4. Is a promotion the right reward?
Sometimes the best thing you can do for a top performer is keep them doing what they’re great at and reward them for it. A raise, a bigger scope, a senior individual role. Moving someone into management because it’s the only way up is how companies lose a great performer and gain a struggling manager in the same week. It’s the pattern behind your best performer becoming your worst leader.
Where to start
Start with question one. It’s the easiest to ask and the one most companies skip. If the answers tell you something your performance data didn’t, you’ve found the gap your succession plan is missing.
None of these questions work well until you’ve defined what good leadership looks like at your company. That’s the difference between a promotion everyone saw coming and one that actually works. When you’re ready to go further, here’s how to tell if someone is ready for a promotion, and how that shows up in succession.
New here? Start with How to Define Your Company Culture and Put It to Work.
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