Does a High Performer = Leader?

“Congratulations… and good luck.”- the typical sendoff you might hear as you embark on your promotion.

You’re a top performer—high sales numbers, great relationships, self-motivated. Success all around. The recognition? A promotion to Director. On Monday, you’ll start leading a team of 12, managing performance and budgets, and collaborating with other organizational leaders on strategic alignment.

You may be doomed to fail.

Here’s the truth: far too often, organizations promote high achievers into leadership without recognizing the knowledge and skill gap that exists. Selling isn’t the same as managing salespeople. Building great relationships doesn’t automatically mean you can align cross-departmental strategy, and being self-driven doesn’t guarantee you’ll know how to support and grow others.

If you’re about to promote someone, ask yourself—are you setting them up to succeed, or to fail?

This leap of assumptions is where leadership failure often begins. Sometimes it falls flat immediately, sometimes it takes years to unravel. When it does, it’s easy to blame the individual—when in reality, it is a failure of executive leadership.

So, how do you promote the right people effectively? Do your homework.

Leadership is not a reward, it is a responsibility that few do well.

Before a promotion ask yourself, “Are we positioned to support success?”

• Deeply understand your people. What motivates them? What drives their passion? Kim Scott’s framework of Rockstars vs. Superstars is a great example. 

Rockstars are steady, phenomenal in their role, and content with consistency. Superstars, on the other hand, are driven by upward movement and hungry for more responsibility. If you mislabel one as the other, you’ll have disengagement, misalignment, and frustration on your hands.  Tailor recognition to their motivations, not yours.

• Assess. Do the qualities that make this person successful today actually translate to the responsibilities of the new role?

• Ask. Before you promote, talk openly about the gaps. Where do they need support? What skills will they need to build? What’s the plan to close that gap?

• Invest. A promotion is not the finish line, it is the starting block. Success requires more than a new role; it takes intentional support to bridge the knowledge gap. Coaching, mentorship, and honest conversations transforms a promotion into lasting leadership success. 

Promotions should be springboards, not sinkholes. The difference comes down to whether you take the time to align talent with trajectory.

Show Me the Money:

A poorly planned promotion doesn’t just cost one salary—it costs the productivity,morale and trust of the organization. One wrong promotion can set a team back years and cost the company millions.

My Challenge To You:

• Strategy: Before you promote, take the time to step back and reassess: Are we filling the right strategic gap?  

• Support: What investment have you committed to?  12 months of leadership support at a minimum.

• Fit: Does this person have the skills and drive (not just personality or tenure) to reach our vision of success?