First of all, don’t panic. This happens more often than you think.
When a team member is excelling at their role, it’s very common for managers to want to promote them into positions of leadership. Sometimes this works very well, but more often than we’d like to admit, it does not.
That’s because the skills needed for leadership aren’t always the same skills that high-performing team members are excelling at.
For example, the skills needed to be a great salesperson are quite different from the skills needed to lead a team of salespeople!
This is sometimes referred to as “The Peter Principle,” the concept that within an organization, people rise to the level of their incompetence. In other words, as long as you’re good at your job, you’ll eventually be promoted to a job you’re not as good at.
While promoting skilled team members makes sense, if we don’t ensure they have the necessary leadership skills, it quickly becomes detrimental to the entire organization. Not only do you take your top performer out of the role they’re great at, but the rest of the team also suffers as well because of a lack of leadership.
So what should you do?
Easy. Just like you’d spend time/money on sales training for salespeople, spend time/money on leadership training for your leaders.
Start here: The 100X Leader Assessment
This is a self-assessment that you can run with any leader (and yourself!) in your organization.
First, have each person answer the question, “how well are you performing?”
Then answer the question, “how well are you leading others?” Rate both questions on a scale of 1-10.
Finally, ask one more question: “What is one thing you can do this week to increase your lower score?”
Do this one exercise on a regular (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly…) with every leader in your organization. Your leaders will grow, and their teams will thrive because of it.
You can get a free GiANT account and watch a short explainer video of The 100X Leader Assessment here.
For more options leadership training and development, visit www.yourteamworkcoach.com