I Promoted My Star Performer, Why Has It Gone Wrong?

Promoted Your Star Performer and It's Gone Wrong? Here's Why

One in four high performers underperform after promotion. This episode covers the promotion pitfalls, how to prevent them, and what to do if it's already gone wrong. Listen now.

Promoting your best person seems like an obvious call — until three months later it's clearly not working. According to the Harvard Business Review, one in four high performers are likely to underperform after promotion. Being brilliant at a job doesn't mean you're ready to lead others doing it — and that gap is where most promotion mistakes live.

In this episode: why this is so common, the wrong reasons people get promoted, what good support looks like in those first months, and what your options are if it's gone wrong.

• Great individual contributors don't automatically make great managers. The skills that make someone a top performer are different from those needed to lead, delegate and develop others. Promoting on performance alone is a common and costly mistake.
• People often push for promotion because they want a pay rise, not because they want to manage. Have that conversation before promoting. Not everyone actually wants the people management responsibility.
• The internal promotion process matters as much as the decision itself. When someone is promoted over peers without a visible process, the team dynamic can undermine them from day one. A fair selection process builds legitimacy.
• Newly promoted managers need a 30-60-90 day plan. Internal promotions rarely come with a bedding-in period, yet the transition is often harder than an external hire.
• Feedback quality in those first months is critical. New managers don't know what they don't know. Specific, contextualised feedback is how you help them learn the job while they're in it.
• Secondments and acting-up arrangements are underused. Letting someone try the role before it's permanent lets both sides assess fit. Small businesses can adapt this easily.
• Demoting someone who doesn't perform after promotion is legally and humanly complicated. A performance management process applies just like any other employee. In practice, most people won't stay once demoted — which is why the original decision matters so much.

• [01:10] Why high performer promotions fail
• [01:56] The salesperson-to-manager trap
• [03:00] Why people push for promotion
• [03:45] The expert career path alternative
• [08:27] Overlooking management skills
• [11:15] Why feedback quality defines early success
• [12:27] 30-60-90 day plan for new managers
• [14:18] Demotions, secondments and next steps

Resources Mentioned

1. Harvard Business Review — one in four high performers underperform after promotion

promotion pitfalls, high performer underperforms after promotion, internal promotion, managing former peers, new manager support, 30-60-90 day plan, secondment, HR podcast small business, star performer management