The Promotion Mistake HR Keeps Making

After 15 years in HR, Mikki Forbes, Co-Founder and COO of Forbes Consulting, LLC, now partners with executives as a Fractional HR leader to design people systems that work — systems that reduce turnover, strengthen leadership pipelines, and align everyday behavior with business goals.

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Organizations believe they are rewarding performance. In reality, they are often creating their next leadership problem. Every day, high performing individual contributors are promoted into management roles with little evaluation of whether they can actually lead people. The assumption is simple and rarely questioned. If someone is good at their job, they will be good at leading others who do the same job.

That assumption is wrong more often than organizations are willing to admit. Gallup has been clear on this for years. Only a small percentage of individuals naturally possess the talent required to manage effectively, yet organizations consistently promote based on performance rather than leadership ability. This is not a subtle issue. It is a structural one.

The result shows up quickly. Strong performers become overwhelmed managers. Teams lose clarity. Feedback becomes inconsistent. Conflict is avoided instead of being addressed. What looked like a promotion becomes a slow decline in team performance. This is not a talent problem. It is a decision making problem.

Organizations continue to rely on past performance as the primary indicator of future leadership success. It feels logical. Someone who understands the work should be able to guide others doing the same work. But leadership is not an extension of individual contribution. It is a different skill set entirely.

The Center for Creative Leadership defines leadership as a social process that enables individuals to work together toward shared goals, not simply the execution of technical expertise. That distinction matters more than most organizations acknowledge.

The competencies that make someone successful as an individual contributor, such as accuracy, efficiency, and technical knowledge, are not the same competencies required to manage people. Leadership requires:

• Navigating interpersonal conflict
• Delivering difficult feedback
• Holding people accountable
• Managing ambiguity and competing priorities
• Influencing behavior without relying on authority alone

These are learned behaviors. They are not automatically developed through individual performance. Still, most organizations skip this evaluation entirely.

The real issue is not promotion itself. Organizations need to promote people. Growth depends on it. The issue is how organizations identify leadership potential. Research published in Harvard Business Review has emphasized that high performance alone is not a reliable indicator of leadership readiness. Instead, leadership potential is better predicted by qualities such as learning agility, adaptability, and the ability to influence others.

Yet most promotion decisions still revolve around what is easiest to measure. Who delivers results? Who works the hardest? Who is most visible to leadership? These are not meaningless indicators, but they are incomplete. When they are treated as primary criteria, organizations end up promoting individuals who are not prepared to lead.

HR sees the downstream effect. Managers who avoid accountability conversations. Teams that operate with unclear expectations. High performers who disengage because leadership is inconsistent. These issues are often treated as performance problems at the team level, when in reality they are leadership selection problems at the organizational level.

Why This Keeps Happening

If the problem is this clear, why do organizations continue to make the same mistake? Because the current approach is easier. Evaluating performance is straightforward. The data exists. The outcomes are visible. The metrics are already built into reporting systems.

Evaluating leadership readiness is more complex. It requires judgment. It requires observation. It requires a willingness to assess behaviors that are uncomfortable to measure. It also requires organizations to slow down promotion decisions, which many are reluctant to do.

There is also a cultural component. Promoting high performers feels fair. It signals that effort and results are rewarded. Introducing leadership readiness criteria can feel like adding barriers, even when those barriers are necessary. But avoiding that evaluation does not remove the risk. It simply delays it.

HR Action: Fixing the Promotion Pipeline

If organizations want stronger leaders, they have to stop treating promotion as a reward and start treating it as a selection decision. That shift changes everything.

1. Define Leadership Readiness Before Promotion

Most organizations define leadership competencies after someone is already in the role. That is backwards. Leadership expectations should be clear before promotion decisions are made. This means identifying the behaviors that indicate readiness, not just potential.

For example:

Instead of asking, “Is this person a strong performer?”

Ask:

• Has this person demonstrated the ability to hold others accountable?
• Can this person deliver direct feedback without avoiding difficult conversations?
• Do they influence team behavior, or only their own output?

Leadership readiness is behavioral. If those behaviors have not been demonstrated, the individual is not ready, regardless of how strong their performance has been. Leadership potential is defined by adaptability, influence, and learning capacity, not technical success alone.

2. Build a Leadership Readiness Assessment Process

Promotion decisions should not rely on informal observation or manager recommendations alone. HR should introduce structured assessments that evaluate leadership behaviors directly. This can include:

• Behavioral interviews focused on real scenarios
• Feedback from peers and cross functional partners
• Observation of how the individual handles conflict or accountability situations
• Short term stretch assignments with leadership responsibility

These assessments do not need to be overly complex, but they must be intentional. Without structure, promotion decisions default back to performance metrics.

3. Create a Pre Promotion Development Path

One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is waiting until after promotion to develop leadership capability. At that point, the stakes are higher. The individual is already responsible for a team. Learning through trial and error becomes risky. Instead, organizations should create pre promotion development opportunities. This can include:

• Acting leadership roles
• Project leadership assignments
• Mentorship responsibilities
• Exposure to performance management processes

These experiences allow individuals to demonstrate leadership behaviors before promotion, not after. They also provide a more accurate view of readiness.

4. Stop Treating Promotion as the Only Reward

This is where many organizations struggle. If promotion is the only meaningful way to recognize high performers, managers will continue promoting individuals who are not ready. HR needs to create alternative pathways for recognition and growth. This can include:

• Senior individual contributor roles
• Skill based compensation increases
• Project leadership opportunities without direct reports
• Recognition tied to expertise rather than management

Not every high performer should become a manager. Forcing that path often damages both the individual and the team.

5. Hold Leaders Accountable for Promotion Decisions

Promotion decisions are not neutral. They shape team culture, performance, and retention. Yet many organizations do not evaluate the quality of those decisions. HR should track outcomes:

• How do teams perform after leadership transitions?
• What is turnover like under newly promoted managers?
• How do engagement scores change?

If a pattern emerges where certain leaders consistently promote individuals who struggle in management roles, that is not an individual issue. It is a leadership accountability issue.

The Shift Organizations Need to Make

The promotion mistake is not subtle. Organizations are selecting leaders based on past performance instead of future responsibility. They are rewarding output instead of evaluating behavior. They are assuming leadership capability instead of measuring it. Until that changes, the same pattern will continue.

High performers will be promoted. Managers will struggle. Teams will disengage. HR will be asked to fix the outcome instead of the decision. The organizations that get this right will not just have better leaders. They will have more stable teams, clearer expectations, and stronger performance over time.

Leadership is not the next step in a career path. It is a different role entirely. It should be treated that way.

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