Promoted Too Soon When Leadership Happens Before They’re Ready

🎙️ Promoted Too Soon: When Leadership Happens Before They’re Ready

What happens when someone is promoted into leadership before they have the skills, support, or experience to succeed?

In this episode, Jessica dives into the challenges that arise when leadership roles are given too quickly. They discuss how high-performing employees aren't always prepared to lead, why technical skills don't automatically translate into leadership ability, and the consequences that can follow when development doesn't keep pace with responsibility.

From strained team dynamics and burnout to difficult conversations and unmet expectations, they explore the warning signs that someone may have been promoted before they were truly ready. More importantly, they share strategies for developing future leaders, providing the right support, and creating a culture where leadership is earned and nurtured—not rushed.

Whether you're a childcare owner, director, or aspiring leader, this episode offers honest insight into one of the most common—and costly—mistakes organizations make.

Because promoting someone is easy. Preparing them to lead is the hard part. 💡✨

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Child Care Confidential. I'm Jessica Hampton, and my co-host Katie Dink is not with us today, so you just get me today. But today we're going to talk about something that is very near and dear to my heart. And it's going to talk about being promoted too soon. When leadership happens before they're ready. So let's be honest here for a second.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Have you ever promoted someone because maybe they were your best teacher? They've been loyal, you don't want to lose them, or maybe you just needed somebody in the role fast. Don't tell me it hasn't happened to you. But why is thinking that way not working the way that you thought it would? You're not alone. We've all been there. We've all had to make sacrifices and decisions quickly. I'm not a big fan of titles. In fact, I'm kind of anti-title with our schools. However, in our state, you do have to have certain titles in child care centers. So we do have those titles as far as director, assistant director, things like that. But here's the reality check, the hard truth. Being great in the classroom, it doesn't automatically make someone ready to lead adults. Let me say that again. Being great in the classroom doesn't automatically make someone ready to lead adults. These are two totally different skill sets. And I think a lot of times we choose someone who's really great in the classroom thinking that they're going to lead adults really well because they manage their classroom really well. However, in the classroom, you're managing things like children, routines, curriculum, lesson planning. In leadership, you're managing adults with opinions, conflicts, accountability, compliance, and pressure from every direction to make the best quick decision that you can. That is a huge jump. So what happens when we promote too early? Let's talk about this ripple effect because it doesn't just impact that one person that you promoted too early. The leader starts struggling quietly. The person you promoted is struggling quietly. They may look fine on the surface, but underneath they're overwhelmed, avoiding hard conversations, and unsure how to actually hold staff accountable and not be their best friend at times. And instead of asking for help, that person starts shutting down quietly. The team fills the gap. Staff can tell when leadership isn't solid. You might see inconsistency in expectations, favoritism, even when it's unintentional, tension or confusion. And once the trust starts to slip with your staff, it is really hard to rebuild. Really hard. The director ends up carrying more of the workload. Instead of delegating, they're probably fixing issues behind the scenes, maybe re-explaining expectations over and over and over. And now they're managing both the leader and the team. So the promotion that was supposed to help you has actually created you more work. This is why it's important not to promote too soon. The leader's confidence takes a big hit. This is the part that we don't talk about enough. They start to feel like they're failing. Have you ever felt like you're failing in a role? It's not a great feeling. It's a struggle. They start questioning their abilities and their talents and gifts. They may even leave the field entirely. And that's not because they couldn't be a great leader. It's because they weren't supposed to be that leader and they weren't supported in becoming one. They were thrown in too soon. Why does this happen? Let's name it a little bit without judgment, okay? It happens we promote people because we're understaffed, we're stretched way too thin. We need solutions and quick. And sometimes we promote out of urgency and not readiness. I think, too, for me, when I was promoting people too soon, because I have done it as well. I promoted people and then had to pull their positions back, and that is not fun. Um, but I think part of that is that we just choose to try to help in some ways somebody advance their career. However, we're not all a great fit for the same position. So this isn't about you and your broken system that you just have the time, and but it's more about helping people grow properly. Our field is so weird in that way. I don't know any other field where you get promoted before you're actually ready. But there are so many people in our field that have been promoted way too early, and it hurts the leader that they potentially could become. So, what does strong leadership development actually look like? Well, if we want sustainable leadership, we have to slow this part down. Build before you promote. Let me say that again. Build before you promote. Give potential leaders opportunities to maybe run a meeting, handle a parent's concern with support, of course. Don't throw them into the deep end, or maybe just mentoring a new teacher. Let them practice leadership before they carry the title. Now that does not mean overwork your staff and give them a whole new position without a title at all. But it means that we have to actually build the person before we can promote them. And then you want to train for adult management, not just compliance. Licensing knowledge matters, of course, in our field. There's so many licensing rules we have to know and follow. But leadership is about people. Hear me again. Leadership is about people. People need support with communication, conflict resolution, giving feedback, holding people to boundaries. Those skills don't just magically appear if you have a new title. Normalize the not yet. This is a big one, and honestly, it's been a big one for our schools. Um, because I have people that would like to be promoted, but it's just not yet. It's okay to say you're not ready yet, but I see your potential. This is not a rejection, this is development, developing the leader before promoting them. So important. I can tell you from experience in somebody that I have promoted to a director's position too quickly, that if you don't build before you promote, you are going to run into the craziest scenarios. Um because they need to learn to lead before they can lead. Um, and when you have somebody that hasn't learned to lead, they may be leading your whole team in the wrong direction. A leader is not a manager, managing is dealing with compliance and following all these things. Leadership is developing people. Here's my quick closing thought on this one. Promoting someone too early doesn't just impact your program. That's right, there's more consequences than just it impacting your program. It will impact your program, but that is not the only thing that it's going to impact. It impacts that person's confidence, their career path, and sometimes whether they stay in this field at all. So the goal just isn't to fill positions. Yes, we have to fill positions, but we need to be ready to fill those with people that are built up to be leaders. The goal is to build the leaders who can actually sustain the work. I had a staff person before that ended up leaving. And you know, you get that feeling like somebody leaves and you're like, they saved me from firing them, um, kind of thing. Well, this staff person um they wanted a management position. And I watched them in the classroom, and to be honest, they weren't my best teacher. So I was kind of like, okay, well, I told this person, I'm sorry, you know, not yet. Like, I can help you build skills, but you're not even close to a management position. That person left. I would not rehire that person, however, they did become a director at a corporate center without even a child development associate. I have no idea how or why or what happened, but true facts. So me not promoting too early in that instance saved me a lot of heartache. Uh some people just you can read it right away. And then there's others that I've promoted to that role as a director or assistant director as somebody in leadership. And I thought they were gonna be great. And if I could only tell you the stories, you'd be like, girl, what? But we're gonna save that for another date because there's there's quite a few. Um if you're like me, you don't love making leadership decisions quickly, and so I process them quite a bit. Uh, and I think that works in our benefit most of the time, but part of that is because I've been burned by a few of those decisions that I made, and that's never a fun place to be. So before you promote the next leader, ask yourself these questions. Am I solving a short-term problem? Or am I building a long-term strength in my program? Let me say that again. Am I solving a short-term problem or am I building a long-term strength in my program? And for your current teams, who has potential? And what do they need from you before they're truly ready? Are you investing in your people? Are you getting them the training that they need to be ready for that position? If that's the route that they would like to go. That is all I have for you today, guys. Just quick thoughts on leadership and promoting people too early. Make sure that you're communicating well with your team and you're really setting the expectations for what leadership looks like at your school. Give your team a clear path to follow and make sure you're building your people. Whether they're with you or not, in the end, they're in the and building them is only better for everybody, not just you or your program. Have a great week, and I'll see you later. Bye.