Promoted for the Wrong Reasons

I was selected for a leadership fast-track program at my first job after college. Entry was based on performance, which meant sales. I expected the program to use different measurements for promotion into leadership. It didn't.

I'll never forget my confusion the first time I saw someone from the program, a person most of us would never have wanted to work for, promoted to district manager. I asked my district manager why. He told me that person had sold the most product in the last year.

Just because he sold the most, he was now leading. That did not make sense to me then. It still doesn't.

The Pattern That Followed Me

What I saw that day followed me throughout my corporate career: people getting promoted for the wrong reasons. Too many became leaders for doing what they were told inside the box they were given. They moved the most product, followed the status quo and looked like the other senior leaders.

They were what I call the best sowers of the opportunities right in front of them. They were not seizing and solving for the other opportunity gaps that existed across their departments and the organization. I understood why. There was little reward for doing more than sowing.

I am not saying these people shouldn't have been rewarded for what they sowed. Results matter. But results in a role are not the same as readiness to lead. When I raise this with the leaders I advise, the reaction is almost always recognition rather than debate.

The cost of this formula compounds. Managers promoted for their individual output are asked to lead people through constant change, often without anyone ever teaching them how, and many of them are exhausted. When the people in the middle are depleted, everyone beneath them feels it.

Five Gaps That Reveal an Unqualified Leader

The same gaps appear again and again in leaders who were promoted for their output rather than their leadership.

1. Their influence stops at their job title. They know how to perform their role, but they have little reach beyond it. They can't mobilize people outside their own team, which means they can't lead change that crosses boundaries.
2. They resist different ways of thinking. Perspectives that don't match their own feel like threats instead of opportunities. They surround themselves with people who think like them and mistake agreement for alignment.
3. They can't articulate their unique value. Ask them what they bring to the organization beyond the numbers and they struggle to answer. If you can't define your own value, you can't help others define theirs.
4. They overlook the individuals behind the growth. Customers and employees want to be understood as individuals. Leaders stuck in old formulas keep designing strategies for averages and segments, and miss where growth is actually coming from.
5. They protect their silos. Complacency keeps them inside the walls of their own department. Silos feel safe, but they slow decisions, bury ideas and leave the organization blind to its own opportunities.

Reinvention, Not Removal

I have worked with dozens of leaders who became heads of operations a generation ago. Many of them are talented and loyal, but the marketplace they were promoted for no longer exists. The playbook that earned their titles can't sustain them, and deep down, many of them already know it. Their loyalty deserves a better answer than a quiet exit.

The answer isn't always to push these leaders out. Often it is reinvention and renewal. Some can be redeployed into advisory roles where their experience strengthens others. Some can be developed to lead in new ways. What cannot continue is pretending that tenure and titles guarantee readiness.

This requires an innovation mentality: the willingness to break from hierarchical, siloed habits and center the needs of employees and customers in every growth strategy. It is the difference between managing a function and leading people.

Rethink How You Promote

If you are responsible for choosing leaders, ask these questions before the next promotion:

• Beyond results, how has this person helped others grow?
• Does their influence extend beyond their own team?
• Can they describe the unique value they bring, and the value of the people around them?
• Do they seek out perspectives different from their own?
• Have they broken down a silo, or built one?

If you are the leader who was promoted for your numbers, ask the same questions of yourself. There is no shame in the answer. The only failure is refusing to grow from it. The strongest leaders I know are the ones who looked honestly at how they got their title and decided to earn it again.

Organizations that keep promoting their best sowers will keep getting leaders who harvest what is in front of them. Organizations that promote people who see, share and grow opportunity will build leaders who create the future.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.