Promoting Performance or Potential?
Promoting the Right Middle Managers:
Promoting from within is a smart strategy. It shows employees there’s room to grow and helps retain top talent. But when it comes to choosing the right person for a leadership role, should you go with your highest performer, or the one already showing leadership traits—even if their numbers aren’t the best?
Many companies default to promoting the best worker. If someone is excelling in their role, it seems logical they’ll be just as effective leading others. But that assumption doesn’t always hold up. Let’s explore why—and how a different approach can lead to stronger, longer-lasting leadership.
Why Top Performers Don’t Always Make Great Leaders
There’s a well-known concept called the Peter Principle, which suggests that employees get promoted based on past success—until they reach a role where they’re no longer effective. A top-performing employee might be fantastic at what they do, but management requires a completely different skill set.
For example, a high-achieving salesperson might be great at closing deals, but as a manager, they now have to coach, motivate, and support an entire team. If their success was based on personal drive and individual results, they may struggle to shift their focus to developing others. The result? Frustration for both the new manager and their team, leading to lower performance and, in many cases, higher turnover.
The Case for Promoting Based on Leadership Potential
Instead of simply promoting top performers, excelling organizations look for employees who naturally demonstrate leadership traits, even in non-leadership roles. These individuals:
✅ Support and mentor their peers without being asked
✅ Think beyond their own success and contribute to team goals
✅ Communicate effectively and problem-solve with a big-picture mindset
Leadership isn’t just about being good at a job—it’s about inspiring and guiding others. Employees who show these skills early on tend to thrive in management roles and stay in them longer than those promoted solely based on past performance.
Which Approach Leads to More Successful Leaders?
While exact statistics vary, research suggests that promoting people based on leadership ability rather than performance results in longer, more effective leadership careers. One study on sales organizations found that high performers who were promoted often struggled in management, while those promoted for leadership skills were better at leading teams and had lower turnover rates.
Finding the Right Balance
The best approach? Don’t ignore job performance, but also look beyond the numbers. Before making a promotion decision, ask:
🔹 Does this person lift others up and work well with a team?
🔹 Do they have strong communication and problem-solving skills?
🔹 Can they transition from ‘doing’ to ‘leading’?
By prioritizing leadership potential alongside performance, organizations can build stronger management teams—ones that not only succeed in their roles but help others succeed as well.
Sources:
Gen Z has turned against taking middle management roles
The Plague of Mediocre Leadership