Don't Make Them A Manager!

By Paul Marsh

Promoting someone into management because they are good at their job is one of the most common and expensive mistakes organisations make. It feels logical, fair, and motivating. In reality, it often produces poor managers, disengaged teams, and long-term organisational damage that is hard to see until it is already entrenched. The thing is: most people do not have the temperament, skill set, or desire required to manage others well. When companies ignore that reality, the consequences extend far beyond one bad promotion.

Doing the job well is not the same as managing people well

High performance as an individual contributor proves one thing only - that the person is good at their own work. Management is a fundamentally different job.It requires:

• Letting go of direct control

• Delegating outcomes rather than tasks

• Coaching instead of fixing

• Making trade offs that disadvantage some people in the short term

• Absorbing emotional pressure from above and below

Many top performers are rewarded for speed, precision, independence, and personal accountability. Management rewards patience, ambiguity tolerance, emotional regulation, and the ability to make others successful. Those skills do not naturally transfer.

Personality and temperament matter more than competence

This is where most promotions fail. Some people simply do not have the emotional wiring for management. Common mismatches include:

• Low patience and high urgency, which leads to micromanagement

• Low empathy, which leads to blunt feedback or avoidance of people issues

• High need for control, which prevents delegation

• Discomfort with conflict, which causes underperformance to be tolerated

• Identity tied to being the expert, which undermines team growth

None of these traits are moral failings. They are simply incompatible with good people leadership. Ignoring temperament because someone delivers results is how organisations create managers who technically know the job but poison the environment.

The micro manager problem is not accidental

Micro managers are rarely malicious. They are often promoted experts who:

• Do not trust others to meet their standards

• Miss the validation of being the best individual contributor

• Fear being exposed as replaceable

• Were never taught how to lead through others

When this happens, output initially appears to improve. Then it collapses. Teams stop thinking, stop taking risks, and stop developing. Decision making bottlenecks at the manager, burnout increases, high performers leave quietly. By the time leadership notices, the damage is already done.

The dangers of getting this wrong are far bigger than most leaders realise

1. Talent loss

People do not usually leave companies. They leave managers. One poor manager can drive out multiple strong performers in under a year. Replacement costs, lost momentum, and cultural damage far exceed the cost of getting the promotion decision right in the first place.

2. Performance decay

Bad management rarely causes dramatic failure. It causes slow decay

• Decisions slow down

• Accountability blurs

• Standards drift

• Initiative disappears
  

This kind of underperformance is dangerous because it looks like normal business friction until competitors pull ahead.

3. Hidden management tax

Senior leaders end up compensating for weak managers by:

• Getting dragged into escalations

• Rewriting work

• Mediating team conflict

• Rehiring roles repeatedly
  

This time is rarely tracked, but it is one of the most expensive inefficiencies in growing organisations.

4. Increased risk of ending up in an employment tribunal!

5. The Peter Principle trap

People are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. Then they stay there. The organisation is left with managers who cannot succeed and individuals who cannot easily step back without loss of status. Everyone loses.

Warning signs you should not promote someone yet

These signals are often ignored. They should not be.

• They improve outcomes by doing the work themselves, not by developing others

• They struggle to give clear, timely feedback

• They become defensive when challenged

• They prioritise their own output over team effectiveness

• They avoid conflict or escalate it emotionally

• They want the title or pay more than the responsibility

The solution is not to block progression. It is to redesign it......:

Dual career paths

Create senior individual contributor roles with equal status and pay to management roles. Make expertise a destination, not a waiting room.

Trial management periods

Offer time-bound acting manager roles with mentoring and explicit success criteria. Remove stigma from stepping back.

Leadership without line management

Let people lead projects, hiring processes, or strategy initiatives without owning performance management.

Training before promotion

Management is a skill set, not a reward. Require demonstrated capability before formal promotion.

For individuals considering management

Ask yourself honestly:

• Do I enjoy developing others more than being the best at the work?

• Am I comfortable being accountable for outcomes I do not directly control?

• Can I handle emotional labour without resenting it?

• Am I willing to be measured on team success rather than personal output?

If the answer is no, that is not failure. It is self-awareness.

Promoting the wrong person into management does not just hurt that individual. It damages teams, erodes culture, and quietly weakens organisations over time.

The cost of getting it wrong is far higher than the discomfort of slowing down promotions or redesigning career paths.