687 | You Think You Promoted the Wrong Person. You Didn’t.

You're about to have a really hard conversation with somebody you believed in. And before you do, you need to hear this first.

Welcome to The Chris LoCurto Show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. Here is what we are talking about today.

You have promoted somebody. Maybe it was six months ago, maybe it was a year ago. You believed in them completely. When you did, their track record was right.

It was, you know, it was something you could point to and you made the call. And now something is off, not dramatically off. They're not blowing up deals or melting down in meetings.

But something is missing. And you've been trying to put your finger on it for weeks, maybe months.

And quietly, in the back of your head, you're starting to wonder if you made the wrong call. Well, I want to tell you before you go any further, I've been where you've been.

I know what you're thinking before you go any further. In most cases, you didn't make the wrong call. I'm not saying you didn't for sure make the wrong call.

I'm just saying we need to walk through this because in most cases, the owner or the leader didn't make the wrong call. But your new leader is stuck.

And they're stuck because of something very specific that almost nobody addresses in a promotion. And when you hear what it is, you're going to understand exactly what's been happening and you're going to want to know what to do. So let's get into it.

The One-on-one that Reveals The Problem (00:01:53)

So picture your week. You've got a one on one scheduled with a new leader. You've been doing this weekly and you sit down and they start talking and they tell you everything they got done.

They closed a deal. They fixed a vendor issue. They personally got in there and solved a client problem before it blew up. And on the surface, it sounds like a good meeting.

But you walk out of that meeting and something is nagging at you because you realize they never mentioned their team. Not once. No. Hey, Sarah is really developing in this area. No, hey, I'm working with Marcus on some conflict issues.

Nothing about anyone on their team growing, struggling, or even changing. Just what they did. And it hits you. That has been every single one on one meeting that you've had.

And then you think about the last couple of weeks, one of their direct reports knocked on your door Tuesday. And with a question that should have gone to the new leader.

Another one texted you on Thursday that should have gone to the new leader, and you're sitting there thinking something is wrong.

So let me ask you, is that potentially your week? Because I've sat across from enough owners and leaders to know that is a lot of people's weeks right now.

Here's what most owners are telling themselves at this point. And once again, like I say, I know I've been there.

I've been in these situations where I have had somebody that I promoted or somebody that, you know, even just hiring from the outside that I put in a role, and I'm struggling with their ability to lead.

This was a big part of my younger leadership career. This is one of the pieces that really kicked me in the butt to focus heavily on what am I doing wrong.

All right, so this is usually what owners are telling themselves at this point. They're telling themselves something like, this person just isn't a leader. I have said that. Or they're saying, you know, this person's just a great individual contributor.

Their role just isn't right for them. I have said that. Or one that, you know, I think we've all probably experienced, you know, the kind of one that keeps you up late at night.

I made a mistake, or did I make a mistake in promoting this person or putting this person in that role? So from where you're standing, any one of those conclusions makes sense.

Any one of those things that you're telling yourself in your head, experiencing probably had a conversation or 17 with your spouse, maybe another leader, maybe another business owner.

All of those make sense. You're watching somebody who's struggling in the role that you gave them.

So what else would you be thinking if they are struggling, if they are not leading, if they are not doing the job right, if people are consistently coming to you about stuff, what else would you be thinking?

Well, here's the deal. Almost always, not 100% of the time, but almost always, that conclusion is always wrong.

60% of the time, that conclusion is wrong 100% of the time. I hope some of you just got that joke.

So if you act on it before you understand what's actually happening, right. Or before you confirm.

Let me say it this way, before you confirm what's actually happening, then you're going to have a very costly mistake on your hands. Think of the-- if you're wrong, think of what all you're going to have to go through to replace this person.

You know, letting this person go. They came out of a good role. You know, if you promoted them from within, they came out of a role that you know they were doing a good job at.

Obviously they must have been doing a great job because you felt like you should promote them. All of these things are going to take money, time, resources, create issues, create problems, all kinds of stuff.

Just because we haven't worked through what the actual problem is. So it's not because you promoted the wrong person. It's because you're misreading what's actually going on. So what is the actual problem?

Oh, that is a great question. I'm so glad you asked it. So let's get to the actual problem.

Why You Didn't Make the Wrong Call: Identity Never Changed (00:06:26)

So here's what is actually happening now. Your new leader's identity never changed. This is such a common situation.

What am I talking about? Well, think about what got them promoted. Why did you decide to put this person in that role? It was their output. It was their personal results.

It was the visible, measurable proof that they were excellent at what they did. That is the identity they built. That is what earned them. Every good thing that has happened to them in their career and they walked into the new role carrying that same identity.

Why? Because nobody told them that it had to change. So think about it. Before the promotion, the value to the business, not their personal value, but the value to the business lived in what they personally produced.

That was the absolute right way to measure themselves. What about after the promotion though? Their value lives now as a leader in what their team produces because of them. And I'm telling you that that is an absolutely different identity.

Now, before I get into the rest of this information, if you have followed me for a long period of time, you've heard me say this over and over again.

And even though you may have heard me say this many times, it is the last thing a business owner or a leader is thinking when they promote somebody or hire somebody in for a leadership position.

So please, for the love, this is the most important thing that you must get in your head.

Whenever, whenever you are looking to hire somebody as a leader, the number one question you must ask is, is not how well did they perform?

It's not what was their output, it's not how excellent were they at doing their previous role. None of those things matter if you do not ask this first question. What in the world makes me think this person can lead other people to success?

Folks, I. I have helped, I don't know how many business owners and leaders over the decades with this one simple problem. We have a tendency to take somebody who's done a great job in what they've been doing.

Number one situation this happens in is with salespeople. You have your number one salesperson and you've got a sales team of like, you know, I don't know, three to five people.

And then it's like, they need to be the sales team leader. Let's promote them. And of course they're like, yeah, I got this, no problem. What in the world told you they could actually lead other salespeople to success? Do you have any evidence there?

You know, they're excellent at sales. And so here's what happens. And this has happened so many times. So many times, you take your best salesperson who is producing really well and you put them in a leadership position and they have no clue how to lead.

And they've never been good at leading people to success. And so now you've got a leader who is failing and you're not going to be able to put them back.

I mean, you could try to put them back in the sales role, but usually that screams failure. And, you know, probably 95% of the time that person can't handle that.

Which is why I always tell somebody when you are promoting, always make sure that they're able to look at this as a trial position.

Let's try this leadership aspect, you know, for a while. And if it doesn't work, we can always go backwards. Everybody knows it on the team.

So if anything fails, they move backwards. Then it's not, you know, they're not massively embarrassed and feel like they're a colossal failure.

That's always an option, is to do the trial piece. Right. But what happens is, is we take somebody who's excellent at doing what they're doing and that is their identity and that is their value to the business.

And then we promote them and we never ask the question, what makes me think they can lead?

So all of that is vitally important because they're there now. They're in that position. So here's why it matters so much when an excellent person is falling short of, let's say, a standard. You know, they. This is. This is a metric I should be able to hit. What do they tend to do?

They work harder. They work harder at the thing they know how to do. So your new leader is sensing that something is off. They're feeling the pressure. They're wanting to prove that they deserve this role.

So what do they do? They go right back to doing what made them great personal output, solving problems themselves, getting there and handling things. And that makes everything worse. Not because they're weak because they were never given a new measuring stick.

They're still measuring themselves by the old one. And the truth is, by the old measuring stick. If you remove the title of leader, then buy the old measuring stick.

They look great. They look fantastic. They're producing. It's not a character flaw. What that is is a clarity gap, and you are the one who can close it.

The Three Stall Points Holding Your New Leader Back (00:12:24)

So here's what I've seen over and over and over again coaching business owners and leaders for decades.

When a new leader's identity hasn't shifted, it shows up in three specific places now. And this is every single time I call these the three stall points.

And before you have any conversation with a new leader about their performance, you really have to stop and find out which stage are they in, because each one requires a different response.

So let's start with stall point number one, which is still producing.

So they're doing, doing the individual work. They're finishing the report. They're jumping in on the client problem. They're solving their, you know, any problem, even if it doesn't belong to them.

They're solving problems that belong to other people on their team. And the thing is, is that they're probably better at it than anyone else, which is another reason why you promoted it. It's also so fast for them, and it feels like they're actually winning.

They can do it. They can knock things out, solve problems, take the credit. But what's actually happening? Now, keep in mind, why did you hire them?

Hopefully you hired them for what I say is the purpose of a leader. Your job as a leader is to make your team successful, not the other way around.

So if you hired this person to make their team success successful, not the other way around, then what should they be doing leading that team, helping them to become successful?

The problem is, is that by putting this person in this role, their identity hasn't changed. They're still producing. And I'm not saying you're not going to have a leader jump into a role and still produce a percentage.

I'm just saying this person has not stopped producing here or they're, you know, they're back to producing, you know, at full breakneck speed. Right? Here's the problem. They're borrowing from their team's growth so that they could feed their own comfort.

Every time they step in and do the work, they steal a development moment from the person who needed to figure out the problem, who needed to learn how to solve problems, the problem.

And what is that signaling to that team member or the entire team. If the. If everybody sees it, what is the message they are sending to their entire team? I don't actually trust you to handle it, which is not true.

They don't mean to send that message. They have no idea that they are sending that message. The actual thing that's happening is they are feeling, you know, a lack of confidence.

They're feeling like they're not doing a good job, so they're jumping in and solving problems and stealing from somebody else, you know, their growth. So the message that gets sent to the rest of the team is, I don't trust you that you can handle this.

When the real thing is, is that they're doing it because their confidence level has tanked. This next one is also very common. Stall point number two is that they're still peers.

They're still peers with the rest of the team. They can't bring themselves to correct the people who used to sit next to them. And that is considerably understandable.

It is such an awkward position. If it has not been set up correctly, if it has not been set up properly, then, you know, there's no real good handoff.

There's no real good installing this person as the leader over the people they used to sit next to. Then this becomes a problem. You know, these are. Think of this. This is probably teammates that they used to go to lunch with, right?

Or, you know, and now this person that they used to go to lunch with is being chronically late, you know, or not getting their deliverables done right?

Not getting to the expected deliverables. And your new leader, what do they say? Well, nothing. Or they say something so carefully, so apologetically that nothing ever changes.

I had-- I sat in a meeting. I had a leader, Geez, 20 years ago, bring me in because she wanted me to sit and listen to her give a really tough conversation to a team member. And she just wanted me to listen to it and evaluate it.

And so she. She brought me, and I'm sitting in there. She brings a team member in, has this whole entire conversation, this tough, tough, tough conversation with this team member.

The person walks out the door, and she's like, so what you think? I go, do you think that's a tough conversation? Do you think that you just had a tough conversation with that team member? She's like, yeah, well, absolutely.

I said, he doesn't. And she goes, oh, oh, no. He really does. I said, bring him back in. And so she called him back in. He sits down at the table, and I go, hey, man, what did you just take from this meeting.

He goes, everything's going good. Everything's great. And she goes, what do you mean everything's going good and great? He's like, isn't it? That's what I took from the, the discussion.

And it just blew her away. Now, this wasn't somebody she used to work with as a peer. But here's what you have to understand.

Especially when they're peers, they're going to have a different, difficult time.

If they don't know how to and they're not prepared to, and they haven't role played and they don't know what it's like to actually hold a peer accountable, they're going to have a very difficult time having a tough conversation with that person.

Why? Because in their head, they're still thinking, we're friends. This is weird. You know, this isn't who I am with this person. This is somebody I used to go to lunch with or maybe they still go to lunch with.

And I don't want to be mess up lunch because that's always great. The key you have to see here is that the relationship hasn't caught up with the role, and that's unacceptable. That is causing an incredible stall in their leadership.

The third stall is a lot like stall number two. They are still avoiding conflict.

So maybe their issue isn't that it's up here, maybe it's not somebody that they used to go to lunch with, you know, but they have problems that need solving, they have conflict that needs to be resolved.

And unfortunately, they go quiet in the moments that require them to, you know, stand up and be courageous or hold a line.

Right? So maybe two people on the team are clashing and this leader says nothing.

You know, maybe somebody misses a deadline repeatedly and, you know, the best response that this leader gives is a carefully worded email that doesn't really say, hey, you messed something up. Here's correction.

We need to solve this. And by the way, this is a big tell. Maybe they keep coming to you and asking you how to handle situations that they should be handling themselves.

That's a huge tell that they don't know what they're doing and they're avoiding conflict. The old job, the old position that they were in never required them to hold a line with somebody that could push back.

This job requires it constantly. And unfortunately, they've never practiced it because nobody has practiced it with them.

So there's three stall points. Still producing, still peers, and still avoiding conflict. Every struggling new leader that I've ever worked with is sitting in at least one.

If not, maybe two of these stall points. But here's the thing. Every single one of them is trainable. None of them mean that you made a wrong call.

None of them mean this person can't do the job. What it means is, is that this person is in a wrong, real transition and they need somebody, hello, AKA you, somebody to help them, you know, by leading them through it.

Now, is it possible that they will not be able to pull off any of these after you've led them through? Yes, definitely a possibility. But here's the deal.

You've got to work through every aspect of training them and applying all this to them so that you give them the opportunity to grow themselves.

Because the truth is, it can be something so simple as they just don't realize that their value and their identity for the business should have changed or they don't realize how to change it.

How to Have the Conversation That Actually Fixes It (00:21:27)

So let me kind of show you what this actually looks like. So let's take the one on one that you just pictured, right, That I was just talking about the meeting where your new leader spent, you know, 20 minutes on their own output and never mentioned their team.

That a stall point. Number one, they're still producing. And here's the conversation that most owners have in that moment. Hey, man, you need to delegate more.

Your team should be handling this and you feel really good about yourself when you say that, right? The problem is, is that that conversation corrects a behavior, but the behavior is going to come back because you didn't touch the identity. That's true.

Driving the behavior. So here's the conversation that actually moves something forward. And we start with taking responsibility ourselves. Take it on yourself. Believe me, it will actually remove a lot of pressure on the new leader.

So say something like this, Hey, I want to tell you something about your role that I should have made clear going in. When you were in your old role, your value to this company was that you literally personally produced, and it was phenomenal.

And that's exactly the right way to have measured yourself back then in that role. That is not the right way for us to measure, you know, your value now.

Instead, your value now shows up in when your team produces because of you. Right? And I know that is a harder thing to feel good at because so much of it depends on you leading them to that success. Right?

Because the results are slower and they're, you know, not directly your results. But here's what I need you to hear. Every single time you step in and handle something that belongs to your team, you're actually Slowing their growth to speed up the outcome.

And long term, man, that is going to cost us a heck of a lot more than it saves us. So I need you to start measuring yourself by a different standard.

Not what you got done, but what your team got done because of you. See the difference? One conversation corrects behavior. Hey, you got to stop doing that and delegate more. The other one changes the measuring stick. You have to change the measuring stick.

Now, let's kind of go through the. The same leader. Let's say they're actually stuck in stall point number two, where they're still peers.

So they cannot bring themselves to correct the people that they used to work with or work alongside, go to lunch with, all that kind of fun stuff, and the team is starting to feel it, because accountability is absolutely, you know, not even showing up or at best, it's uneven.

Right. And everybody on the team can see that this is how this new leader is acting. And they're all probably peers as well. Right? So here's what most owners do. They wait. They give it time.

They tell themselves that the relationship will sort itself out. I've seen this a bajillion times. And the problem is, it doesn't. It actually puts an incredible strain on the relationship. So what your new leader needs is a specific conversation to have with each person.

Not just the one person, or not a static one, but each person on their team before the first correction ever happens. So what your new leader needs is a specific conversation to have with each person on their team before the correction ever happens.

Something like, hey, I want to get ahead of something before it ever comes up, you know, in the wrong moment. Our relationship hasn't changed. I still value you.

I still trust you, but the shape of our relationship has. I'm. I'm now your leader, right? That means that there are going to be moments that I redirect you or push back on something in a way I didn't before.

Now, that's not me changing towards you. That's me doing the job that I've been promoted to do. And I wanted you to hear that from me directly. So before it ever happens, you know, I wanted to just have this discussion so it doesn't feel like it came out of nowhere.

So. And then, you know, teach them to have the conversation with that, that friend. I will tell you, I work with my best friends on the planet, and they always know that no matter what, at the end of the day, I'm still their leader. Right?

It's the same thing for all the leaders on my team, right, we love each other greatly. We do a lot of stuff together.

We help change lives and businesses and everything. And it's just a powerful thing that we're so blessed to be able to do.

But we still understand the basic, you know, tenants of leadership, and that if you mess something up, then you're going to have a leader that's going to have to handle that with you no matter what.

Right now, all the other things we teach is what makes it where that stuff doesn't happen, right?

Where there's not the issues. We're not seeing personal conflict or anything like that because we just handle it the correct way. Right?

So the conversation, having it that way, protects the relationship because it actually names the change before the change creates confusion.

How many times have you ever seen two people that are friends and then one gets promoted?

And unfortunately, it creates, you know, when there has to be some sort of tough conversation or pushback, it creates confusion, it creates a loss of worth, it creates issues between the two people.

I have literally seen relationships end because of this stall point right here. So skipping it, not doing it, is absolutely going to guarantee that a incredibly harder conversation is going to happen later on every single time.

Now, if you've got a leader that is in stall point number three, which is still avoiding conflict, here's what I want you to do. Don't wait for a real situation to coach them through it.

A lot of times people are just like, hey, everything's going fine. I don't need to coach and train and teach. Nope. I want you to sit them down this week and pick a very, you know, realistic type scenario.

Something like, you know, what would you say if somebody on your team pushed back hard on a deadline that you set? How would you handle that? Right? That's a good one.

Somebody's going to push back on, you know, deadlines that you set. Somebody's going to push back on parameters of a project getting done. How are you going to handle it?

And have them say it out loud, out loud in the room with you, not just think about it, literally say it out loud, then coach to what they say. You know, hey, here's. Here's what landed on what you said, or here's what I would tighten up or, you know, here's the thing.

I think you need to adjust or change or here's what I think you need to think about with the other team member, the other people that you're leading.

Here's some, you know, ask some questions. You, you know, how do you think they're going to receive this. How do you think this is going to come across?

Guide, coach, direct, lead, and then try it again. The deal is that you're building the muscle before the moment requires it.

And one of the biggest mistakes leaders do is that they don't ever actually role play, walk it out, you know, practice what it's like to lead in those difficult situations before it ever happens.

So when the real conversation comes and it's going to, I promise you, you're helping them to not go in cold, right? They've already said the hard thing. They know what it feels like to hold the line and have it be okay.

And that is what changes everything. Now you have an assignment this week, one thing this week before your next one on one with your new leader. You name which stall point they're in.

Really process through and think which one of these three stall points are they in? Just pick one of them, right? Whatever you feel like is the most urgent right now that you have to handle, whether it's still producing still peers or still avoiding conflict.

Then go into that meeting with a different conversation than you've been having. Do not have the performance conversation.

Listen, if you ask them how they're doing, if you ask them to give an update, it's just going to keep being, being the same exact thing. And it's going to be 20 minutes of them telling you how well they did.

You need to go in with a different version. Here's what needs to change. It's a transitional conversation. Start it with, hey, I want to tell you something about your role that I should have made clear going in. Take that responsibility.

Let them know that you failed at this. You don't have to say I'm a failure. Just let them know that you're taking responsibility for how their current view of their identity and their value to the company is. And then name it.

Name the identity shift, the measuring stick that has to change, and which stall point that they're sitting in that you believe that they're sitting in.

And here's the line that I want you to say to them out loud because most struggling new leaders need to hear it more than anything else. I want you to say you are not failing. You are in a transition that nobody handed you a map for.

And that is my fault. I should have given you the map sooner. So that's what I'm doing right now. This is my bad. I was not setting you up for success. I unfortunately set you up for failure by not giving you this map.

Now I want to set you up for success. If you do this, then that conversation will do more in 30 minutes than six months of watching and waiting to see what they do.

How do we know this? Because you've already done it, right? You've already seen that they're not doing what you want them to do. You're not getting the outcomes that you're wanting.

So most excellent people who are struggling in a new leadership role have been quietly wondering, am I the problem? And when their leader sits down and says, no, here's the transition. Here's what you're, you know, here's where I believe you're stuck.

And I'm going to help you through this process that absolutely unlocks the new leader. Now, before I let you go, I want to make sure you don't miss something.

What we talked about today is real. Have the conversation this week. Your new leader needs to hear it. But here's the bigger picture.

If your people aren't developing, if they're not growing into leaders who can own decisions, handle conflict, and carry things without you, then your business still runs on you.

Every problem, every call, every hard moment comes back to your desk. That's what I'm addressing on August 6th at 11am Central in a free live workshop called Four Steps to Build a Business that runs without you.

This is not theory. This is the actual system. The four things that have to be in place for your team to lead without you in the room. It's free, it's live, and you can bring your questions.

So go to chrislocurto.com/build that's chrislocurto.com/build so that you can register today one more time so you don't miss it. chrislocurto.com/build.

Well, folks, that is all the time that I have for today. I hope this was powerful for you. I hope this helps you in your leadership and helps your leaders. As always, take this information.

Change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.