The Demand

Before your next promotion, you ask the right question. If you promote based on “are they good at the job” instead of “are they good at developing the people who do the job,” you risk losing a great performer and gaining a struggling manager while the team gets neither.

The Work

  1. Identify any promotion decision currently pending or under consideration this week.
  2. For that candidate, answer the leadership question directly and separately from the performance question: have they coached anyone, developed anyone, or improved someone else’s performance — specifically, not generally?
  3. If the answer is unclear, create a small test this week: give the candidate one developmental task with another cast member — training a new hire, coaching a specific skill — and observe the result before finalizing the promotion.
  4. If you have already promoted someone into leadership without this evaluation, run it now. Identify the gap in their leadership capacity and build a coaching plan for it this week, rather than assuming it will develop on its own.

Before you finalize any promotion this week, you have evidence of that person’s capacity to develop others, not just their capacity to execute.