Why High-Performing Managers Can Struggle After Promotion
You’ve promoted someone because they’re brilliant at what they do. They know the business, they get things moving, and when a problem lands on their desk, you trust them to sort it out.
So why, six months into the new role, are they working longer hours, still caught up in the detail, and finding it difficult to lead at the level you hoped they would?
This is one of the most interesting challenges in leadership development, because the answer often lies in the very strengths that earned them the promotion.
For 15 years at CHANEL, I worked in senior commercial roles across retail development and national accounts. Being close to the detail mattered. You needed to understand what was happening with a retail partner, how a decision might affect the customer experience, and what it would take to deliver a result. That knowledge gives you credibility, and rightly so.
But as your responsibility grows, there comes a point where being the person who knows the most, fixes the problem or drives every decision can hold you back. The business needs your judgement and experience, but it also needs other people to be able to do more without you.
That’s a much harder adjustment than it sounds.
I’ve coached leaders who know, intellectually, that they need to delegate more. Yet when a team member brings them a problem, they immediately start working out the answer. It feels helpful. It’s often quicker. And if you care deeply about the quality of the work, it can be very difficult to stand back and watch someone take a route you wouldn’t have chosen yourself.
In one coaching engagement, we spent time looking at exactly this pattern. The leader was regularly drawn into resolving issues that their managers could have handled. The change wasn’t simply to hand off more tasks. It was to respond differently when a problem came back: to ask the manager what they thought, explore their judgement, and leave ownership of the resolution with them.
There’s a practical benefit to that, of course. The leader gets some time back. But the more important change is that the team starts to build the confidence and capability to make decisions.
I see something similar when leaders tell me they want to “be more strategic”. It’s a phrase that comes up a lot in coaching, and I always want to know what it means in their job. Does it mean making time to look ahead? Building relationships outside their immediate function? Bringing a clearer point of view to senior discussions? Making a decision about what their team should stop doing?
Until you get specific, “be more strategic” can feel like one more thing to add to an already challenging to-do list.
And there’s another layer to all of this. If you have built your reputation on being capable, reliable and across everything, loosening your grip can feel surprisingly unsettling. Who are you at work if you’re no longer the person with the answer? How do you show that you’re adding value when much of your best work is now done through other people?
These aren’t signs that someone was the wrong person to promote. They’re questions that often arise because they are growing into a different level of leadership.
The organisation needs to be clear about that change, too. If someone is told to think more broadly but is still praised mainly for swooping in and saving the day, the message is confusing. What does success in the new role actually look like? Which decisions should they own? Where should they be developing others, rather than doing the work themselves?
For me, good leadership development starts with those real questions. Take a meeting they have coming up, a decision they are holding too tightly, or a manager they keep stepping in for. Help them try something different, then look honestly at what happened. That is how a new way of leading begins to feel possible, and how the business can see whether it is making a difference.
If you’re supporting someone through a promotion, I’d start by asking:
What are they still doing because they’re good at it, even though the new role needs something else from them?
Where are people waiting for their answer when they could be developing their own judgement?
What would you expect to see them doing differently three months from now?
Promotion changes a job title overnight. Changing how someone operates takes more thought and practice. The aim isn’t to lose the expertise that got them there. It’s to help them use it in a way that allows both the leader and the people around them to grow.
About Kate
Kate Rainford-Foakes is an executive and leadership coach based in London, an EMCC Senior Practitioner, and holds an ILM Level 7 Diploma in Executive Coaching and Mentoring. Before becoming a coach, she spent 15 years in senior commercial roles at CHANEL, including retail development and national accounts. She now works with leaders navigating promotion and greater responsibility, bringing together practical business experience and coaching to help them lead effectively and sustainably at their new level. Find out more at katerainford.com.