Leadership Promotions: Choosing the Right Leaders

How to Make Leadership Promotions That Actually Work

Leadership promotions can either strengthen your organization or unravel a team—and it all depends on how you choose your leaders.

Allison was a great nurse. The best nurse at her hospital. She loved her job and her patients and, in return, they loved her and regularly wrote to the hospital about how great their stay was and how much Allison had helped them. The supervisory position for her unit came up and there was no question who would fill it. Allison happily accepted the promotion and looked forward to many more great years.

Yet within six months her unit was in complete disorder. The team was fighting, the patients were complaining, and Allison—once the star of the unit—was devastated. She hated coming to work, felt overwhelmed, and worst of all, had no idea how to fix it.

So how did this happen? How does the best of the best turn into the worst of the worst? Why doesn’t the best engineer, firefighter, or nurse automatically become the best leader? And what about longevity—does experience mean someone will lead well?

The answer is… maybe.

Being great in a job requires one skill set. Leadership requires a completely different one. While these skills are attainable for most people, they require education, self-awareness, relationship-building, and a lot of practical, real-world application.

So now you're in charge of selecting someone for promotion into leadership. How will you choose?

By experience? By popularity? By test scores? By who you personally like? Or will you promote based on the skills that leadership actually requires?

Yes—test candidates on the managerial tasks. Do they know the rules? Can they complete required paperwork? Do they understand the technical aspects of the job?

But do not neglect what truly pays off for organizations:

• Building relationships

• Resolving conflicts

• Motivating others

• Growing individuals and teams

• Holding people accountable

• Moving the organization forward

• Modeling the values of the workplace

Ask candidates situational and behavioral questions. Ask how they’ve applied leadership skills—not how much they know about leadership, but how much they’ve actually done. These questions will quickly separate the “knowers” from the “doers.”

The real litmus test is whether your organization identifies emerging leaders early—those who want to grow, seek education, embrace feedback, and demonstrate leadership behaviors long before they have the title.

Look for them. Develop them. Challenge them. Prepare them.

When you promote based on leadership capability—not convenience—you strengthen your culture, improve retention, and build a healthier, more productive organization.

Help Your Future Leaders Grow Before They’re Promoted

If you want your leadership promotions to succeed, you must prepare people before they take the job. Our Your Leadership Approach workbook gives emerging leaders practical tools to build self-awareness, develop their leadership style, and strengthen their ability to lead others effectively.