The Promotion Paradox: Why Your Best Engineers Make Struggling Managers
Sarah was brilliant. Top performer. Solved problems no one else could touch. So naturally, when a project manager role opened up, she got the promotion.
Six months later, her team was frustrated, Sarah was exhausted, and her manager was confused. What happened to the star performer they'd promoted?
Nothing happened to Sarah. The organization just never taught her how to lead.
This is the promotion paradox: we select leaders based on individual excellence, then throw them into roles that require collective thinking, emotional intelligence, and strategic patience. We promote engineers who excel at technical work and expect them to suddenly know how to develop people, navigate conflict, and align diverse teams toward shared goals.
The cost shows up everywhere. In the manager who micromanages because they don't trust their team to execute at their level. In the leader who works 60-hour weeks because it's faster to do it themselves than to coach someone else. In the executive team, everyone defends their domain instead of collaborating across silos.
At ISL Engineering, they watched this pattern play out as they grew from 300 to over 600 employees in just a few years. "We take good engineers and turn them into project managers, and then we turn them into people managers," said Randy Heaps, ISL's Chief People and Administrative Officer. "Nowhere along the way did we actually teach them the ins and outs of being a great people manager."
The feedback from across the company was clear: too many heroes in capes trying to solve complex problems on their own.
ISL tested various solutions – one-off workshops, off-sites, weekend retreats. Nothing stuck because they were treating a systemic problem with episodic interventions. What they needed wasn't just better content, but a fundamental shift in how leaders showed up, connected with each other, and thought about their role in the business.
The Shift From Intuition to Intention
Here's what most organizations get wrong: they assume leadership development is about adding new skills. Learn delegation. Practice feedback. Master strategic thinking.
But for most leaders, especially those promoted from technical roles, the issue isn't that they don't know these concepts. They've read the books. They've sat through the training. The gap is in application – in translating what they know intellectually into how they actually show up when the pressure is on, when the deadline is looming, when it would be faster to just do it themselves.
This is the difference between leading by intuition and leading with intention.
Leading by intuition means defaulting to what's worked before. It's the leader who jumps in to solve every problem because that's how they built their reputation. It's the executive who makes decisions in isolation because collaboration feels slow. It's the manager who avoids difficult conversations because conflict is uncomfortable.
Leading with intention means making conscious choices about how you show up, how you connect with others, and how you contribute to collective success. It requires self-awareness about your patterns, willingness to depend on other people's perspectives, and commitment to outcomes over ego.
Why Shared Language Matters More Than You Think
One of ISL's biggest challenges wasn't just inconsistent leadership – it was that leaders across the organization were speaking different languages.
"Before we had this program, a few of our senior executives had attended in-person leadership programs at places like Queen's, while others completed various online or in-person courses through different universities and training providers," said ISL CEO Kevin Terness. "We needed a shared language and philosophy that tied directly to our strategy and values."
Without shared language, every leader interprets concepts like accountability, trust, and collaboration differently. One leader's "healthy debate" is another's "toxic conflict." One person's "empowerment" is another's "abdication of responsibility."
Shared leadership language creates efficiency and alignment. When everyone understands what "first team mindset" means, you don't have to re-explain the concept in every meeting. When the entire leadership team has a common framework for giving feedback, those conversations happen more naturally and effectively across the organization.
But more importantly, shared language creates culture. It signals what matters here, how we do things, what we expect from each other. It turns abstract values into daily practice.
The Infrastructure That Makes Leadership Development Stick
ISL partnered with Incito to build something different: a year-long cohort experience called "Shift" that embedded leadership development into how work actually happened.
Not a workshop. Not a retreat. A sustained journey with structured coaching, peer learning, real-time application to actual business challenges, and accountability that extended across months, not hours.
The results weren't just about individual transformation, either. Though leaders reported significant personal growth, the bigger shift was cultural. Leaders started using the same frameworks in meetings. They referenced shared tools when navigating challenges. One cohort even kicked off the company's annual management retreat, unprompted, to share what the "first team" mindset meant to them.
"We've seen people 20–25 years into their careers come out of this with totally new levels of self-awareness," said Heaps. "They're recognizing blind spots, owning their impact, and shifting how they lead. You can feel it."
Now in their fifth cohort with a sixth planned, ISL has transformed 60+ leaders and promoted four to their executive leadership team. The program didn't just prepare them for growth – it powered them through it.
What This Means For Your Organization
If you're seeing these patterns in your leadership team, you're not alone:
Leaders who solve problems independently rather than developing their teams
Inconsistent leadership quality across departments or regions
High performers who struggle when promoted to management
A lack of shared language or philosophy around leadership
Leaders who feel overwhelmed and don't know how to ask for help
The solution isn't another workshop. It's building infrastructure that helps leaders apply what they already know in more intentional, connected, and strategic ways.
It's creating space for leaders to develop self-awareness about their patterns. It's giving them tools to build trust and hold accountability with their peers. It's helping them see how their individual leadership connects to broader business outcomes.
That's the shift from knowing to growing. And it's what separates organizations that scale successfully from those that buckle under the weight of their own growth.