You’ve Promoted Someone to Lead a Team, But Have You Trained Them?

You know that feeling when you step into a role you’ve worked so hard for… and suddenly it’s a whole new game? That’s where Sam found herself last year. She’d been a top performer for three years, the go-to person for IT systems and troubleshooting. A promotion to team lead was seen as the natural next step in her career. However, six months after the promotion, Sam was overwhelmed.

As an individual contributor, she'd only needed to manage her own tasks. Now she was encountering new and challenging responsibilities. Such as…

- Delegating effectively without micromanaging. 

- Giving feedback that's kind, constructive, and honest. 

- Holding people accountable when they miss deadlines or service level agreements. 

- Managing competing priorities while making decisions that affect everyone.

These weren't skills she'd necessarily needed as an IT specialist.

When Sam got promoted, she received a congratulations email, a new title, and some reintroductions to the team. But she received no formal training on how to manage or lead people (she was now managing a team of 12).

During our first coaching session, Sam was candid: "I feel so comfortable and confident solving technical problems, but I have no idea how to hold someone accountable without sounding like a micromanager. And when my team comes to me with problems, I tend to just fix them myself instead of helping them figure it out so they know how to do it going forward."

When did we start believing that top performance equals leadership ability? Why do we assume someone who excels individually will automatically excel at developing others? 

This is something I come back to over and over. Because it’s one of the biggest HR challenges we encounter, and why we offer the services we do at LeadMe Academy. Many people think leadership is innate, but it's actually a set of skills that need to be taught, developed, and refined over and over throughout leadership careers.

Through our flagship leadership development program, Sam gained self-awareness of her strengths while gaining the skills needed to lead herself and others better. This is exactly where HR professionals can make a difference. The companies getting this right aren't just investing in technical training, processes, and AI; they're ensuring their new managers have the leadership and soft skills to inspire trust, navigate change, and bring out the best in their teams - because those are the skills that turn competent managers into truly great leaders.

So, here’s the question: Are you promoting people into management and maybe assuming they’ll figure it out? Or are you giving them the tools to lead, coach, and grow their people from day one?

Because here’s what I know after years of this work: Your star performers can become brilliant managers - but only if we equip them with the leadership and soft skills that inspire people, drive performance, and make success sustainable.

Onward and upward,

Jackie

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