How to lose your best operators: promote them to management
I’ve seen this many times in SaaS companies, especially as they grow. At a certain point they need to add some layers, and they look to promote the people they trust most. Those key individual contributors want to see their own careers progress, and management is often the only visible route. Some are not well suited to the role; those that are, often lack the support to succeed. Even in companies I worked, with exceptional People teams, there’s usually a gap in preparing the wider organisation for expansion.
When a high‑performing individual moves into a Team Lead or Manager role for the first time, two things can make or break a new leader:
- Mind Shift
- People Management
I'm a Manager, What do I do Now?
The first shift is realising your performance is no longer your own. For good or bad, you now own the performance of the whole team.
If you were the best at what you did and you move into a full manager role, you’ve just lost your top player. If you’re in a Team Lead role where you’re still expected to deliver, you’re juggling high performance with managing everyone else’s.
You’ve also moved from colleague to boss/coach/counsellor. If you’re lucky, everyone’s happy for you; if not, you’ve got to manage those who think they should be where you are now.
Your carefully planned day can be derailed by helping, supporting, managing or de‑escalating an issue. They used to go to someone else. Now that someone is you.
For many high performers, the lost time and additional task switching, leads to a drop in personal output; something they’ve never had to face.
Successful Navigation
It might sound like I don’t recommend promoting anyone to management. What I really don’t recommend is promoting people unprepared, especially in high‑performing teams like sales engineering, professional services or delivery. I was extremely lucky early on in my career: with only a couple of direct reports and enough space to pretend I knew what I was doing until I actually worked things out. In fast‑growth environments, that luxury is long gone.
The real issue is that organisations often treat management as a reward, not a profession. Until that changes, we’ll keep promoting our best operators into roles they’re not prepared for, and wondering why we lose them. It doesn’t take long, (a few months, sometimes weeks), for someone to realise they’re out of their depth. They won’t tell you they’re failing; they’ll just leave, and you’ve then lost a key part of your team.
Management is a valid path for some, but it's no reward in itself. Senior managers need to create strategic growth plans for individual contributors. As well as forming key anchor positions, horizontal moves to another department can be a great option; it strengthens the company through broader knowledge and insight, and it grows the individual. If they’re not ready now, that wider experience may make them an even better manager in the future; with the right support of course.
How have you seen this play out in your own company?