So you’ve got a rockstar employee, a total game-changer in their current role. Naturally, you want to reward their success by promoting them to a leadership role.
But here’s the snag: excelling at a job and excelling as a leader are vastly different criteria. If you promote them without the right preparation, they could flounder, and you risk their morale and that of the entire team. But if you hold back their promotion, you might lose them altogether.
At The Metiss Group, we’ve helped countless organizations navigate this delicate balance by equipping rising leaders with the skills and insights they need to succeed.
In this article, we’ll show you:
- The problem with promoting your best individual contributor
- Why skipping the promotion isn’t the answer either
- The solution: teaching foundational leadership skills
- The eight foundational practices every leader needs
- The importance of self-discovery in leadership development
The Problem with Promoting Your Best Individual Contributor
Let’s say you’ve got a top employee who’s delivering stellar results. They’re brilliant, driven, and self-motivated.
But when you move them into a leadership role, they hit a wall. Why?
Because leading people isn’t about just being good at your job; it’s about helping others succeed at theirs.
Top contributors often assume everyone else should have their same drive and work ethic. When someone on their team doesn’t, they’re confused. "Why don’t you care as much as I do?" they wonder. And that’s where the frustration starts.
Without the right skills, your former superstar might:
- Struggle to delegate because they think, "I can do it faster myself."
- Fail to give meaningful feedback because they don’t know how to frame it constructively.
- Feel disconnected from their team because they haven’t learned how to build trust and relationships.
This isn’t just bad for them, it’s bad for your whole team. The leader is stressed. The team feels unsupported. And you might lose not just a great contributor but an entire team’s morale. Ouch.
Why Skipping the Promotion Isn’t the Answer Either
In fear of promoting your top performer, you might think, "Okay, I’ll just hire someone from the outside to lead." But that’s risky too.
If your top contributor sees someone else get the job they wanted, they’re going to feel undervalued. And undervalued employees leave. Cue the dreaded resignation letter.
So, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place: Promote and risk failure, or don’t promote and risk losing them.
What’s the solution? You guessed it: prepare them for leadership success before they step into the role.
The Solution: Teach Your Star Performer Essential Leadership Skills
Nobody is born knowing how to lead. Leadership is a skill, just like coding, sales, or graphic design. And like any skill, it can be learned.
But here’s the thing: leadership isn’t something you can pick up from a single webinar or a quick lunch-and-learn. It requires ongoing, structured development.
A solid leadership development program should include:
- Structured Learning: Teach practical techniques they can apply immediately.
- Practical Application: Give them opportunities to lead in low-stakes scenarios first.
- Coaching: Provide a coach who can offer personalized guidance.
This combination makes learning "sticky," meaning they actually remember and use what they’ve learned. Without these elements, they’re just flipping through a book that ends up collecting dust on their desk.
Eight Foundational Practices Every New Leader Needs
So, what should your future leader learn? Here are eight foundational leadership practices we’ve found to be most impactful:
- Delegation: The leader learns how to empower their team to take ownership of important projects. It’s not about offloading work, it’s about giving teams the authority and autonomy to accomplish things.
- Giving Feedback: Constructive, actionable feedback and course corrections that build relationships instead of tearing them down.
- Prioritizing Personal Development: Learning how to grow and track measurable progress.
- Holding One-on-Ones: Building trust and understanding with direct reports through regular, meaningful conversations.
- Using Job Scorecards: Defining roles clearly and holding team members accountable for their results.
- Conducting Performance Reviews: Creating a structured, regular cadence for reviewing progress and setting goals.
- Aligning Goals: Helping their team members set individual goals that support the company’s bigger picture.
- Planning for Succession: How does the team cover when one employee is out sick for two weeks? Documenting the key aspects of performing every job will avoid any business disruption.
These aren’t just theories; they’re practical, actionable skills that your rising leader can start practicing right away.
The Importance of Self-Discovery in Leadership Development
Great leadership isn’t just about skills. It’s also about understanding yourself and how your words and actions impact others.
That’s why the best leadership programs include a self-discovery phase, where leaders and their teams use behavioral assessments to understand their communication styles and motivators.
Here’s an example: Imagine a leader who’s motivated by efficiency managing a direct report who values aesthetics. The leader might feel frustrated when the team member spends too much time (and money) creating visually stunning materials.
Without understanding their different motivators, this tension could escalate. But with behavioral assessments, the leader learns how to adapt their communication and set expectations that work for both styles.
In other words, learning the eight leadership practices mentioned above will build a solid foundation for your new leader. But understanding behaviors and motivators — and using that information to adapt communication styles — is what truly accelerates the performance of the leader and their team.
We’ll admit some bias here. At The Metiss Group, we start every leadership program with a self-discovery phase. But trust us, this is the stuff lightbulb moments are made of.
The Bottom Line on Promoting Your Top Performer
Promoting your top performer into a leadership role doesn’t have to feel like a gamble. Don’t just give them a promotion and hope they’ll figure it out — instead, set them up for success by teaching them the foundational leadership practices.
At The Metiss Group, we specialize in helping organizations navigate this critical transition. With proven strategies and tailored development programs, we ensure your leaders are prepared to succeed.
Now that you understand how to successfully transition a star performer into leadership, the next step is to learn how accelerating leaders drives ROI through their direct reports.
