The Leader Who I Thought Was Not Ready
Sometimes the person who ends up growing the most is the one the room was least sure about at the start, and recognizing that possibility requires a leader willing to look past a current gap toward a capacity that has not yet been demonstrated.
There was a teacher on our campus who interviewed with our leadership team for a higher position. I was the only person on the team who believed his lack of people skills that were required in this new role superseded his pedagogical skill to do the job. We offered him the position anyway. Much to my surprise, he grew significantly in exactly the areas that needed refinement. That experience taught me to ask a different question when making promotion decisions going forward. Can he or she grow because I lead them?
Most promotion decisions are built around a single question, framed as an evaluation of current readiness. Does this person already have every skill the role requires? That question is reasonable on the surface, and it produces a predictable outcome. It filters out anyone with a genuine gap, regardless of how promising their existing strengths might be, or how much capacity they might have to close that gap once given real responsibility and support.
There is a second question worth asking alongside the first, one that shifts the frame entirely. Not simply, is this person ready today? But can this person grow because of the leadership and support they would receive in this role? That second question acknowledges something the first one ignores, that growth is not solely a function of individual effort. It is shaped significantly by the environment, coaching, and expectations a leader provides once someone actually steps into a new level of responsibility.
This distinction matters enormously in educational settings, where the gap between strong instructional skill and strong interpersonal leadership is common and well documented. Many excellent educators have never had to lead adults, manage difficult personalities, or navigate the political complexity that comes with formal authority over former peers. Screening every promotion purely on current people skills would eliminate a significant number of leaders who go on to develop those skills quickly once the role itself creates the pressure and opportunity to do so.
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None of this means every promotion decision should ignore real gaps in favor of blind optimism. The decision described here was not made carelessly. It was made after direct observation of strong instructional capability, paired with a genuine belief that the specific gap present, people skills rather than technical competence, was one that could realistically close with the right support. Distinguishing between a gap that is likely to close with support and a gap that reflects a deeper mismatch with the role is where real judgment comes in, and it requires knowing the person well enough to make that distinction with some confidence.
There is a specific responsibility that comes with promoting someone into a gap like this one, and it belongs to the leader who made the decision, not only to the person being promoted. A promotion made on the belief that someone can grow into a role only pays off if the leader actually provides the coaching, feedback, and support that growth requires. Promoting someone into a gap and then leaving them to figure it out alone is a very different decision than the one described here, and it produces a very different outcome far more often.
This pattern also reveals something important about how leaders evaluate potential more broadly. It is far easier to measure a candidate against a checklist of current skills than to make a judgment call about future growth capacity. The checklist approach feels safer, more objective, and easier to defend if the decision does not work out. The growth capacity approach requires a leader to take on real risk and real responsibility for the outcome, which is exactly why it is used less often, even though it may produce better long term results in the right circumstances.
There is a specific signal worth watching for when evaluating whether someone has real growth capacity in an area where they currently show a gap. Consider how they have responded to feedback and challenge in the past, in any area of their work, not only the specific area of concern. Someone who has demonstrated a consistent pattern of taking feedback seriously and adjusting their approach accordingly is a much safer bet for growth in a new area than someone who has shown resistance to feedback generally, even if their current skill level looks identical on paper.
Consider a promotion decision currently in front of you, or one you have recently made, and ask honestly which question actually drove the decision. Was it purely an evaluation of current readiness, or did it include a genuine, well reasoned belief about growth capacity, backed by a real commitment to provide the support that growth would require. The answer to that question often predicts the outcome more reliably than the initial skill assessment ever could.
There is also a version of this pattern worth naming that runs in the opposite direction. Some leaders extend the growth capacity question so broadly that it becomes an excuse to avoid ever screening for readiness at all, promoting people into roles they are genuinely unprepared for without any realistic plan for closing the gap. That is not the same decision described here. What made this particular promotion work was not blind optimism about potential. It was a specific, informed judgment, based on direct observation of the person's existing capability in one area, paired with a deliberate willingness to invest real coaching in the area of concern.
It is worth considering what would likely have happened had the promotion not been paired with genuine support afterward. Potential alone rarely closes a real skill gap without deliberate attention. A leader who promotes someone based on growth capacity and then treats the promotion as the end of her own responsibility, rather than the beginning of an active coaching relationship, is far less likely to see the same outcome. The growth described here did not happen automatically simply because the opportunity was given. It happened because the opportunity was paired with ongoing attention to the specific area that needed development.
This raises a practical question worth asking before any similar promotion decision going forward. If this person is promoted specifically because of a belief in their growth capacity, what concrete plan exists for actually supporting that growth once the promotion takes effect. Naming that plan explicitly, before the promotion happens rather than after, increases the odds considerably that potential turns into demonstrated ability, rather than remaining an untapped hope that quietly fades once the pressures of the new role set in.
Years later, that decision remains a reference point worth returning to whenever a similar promotion question arises. The instinct to screen strictly on current skill is understandable and often serves an organization well. The willingness to look past a specific, addressable gap, when genuine growth capacity and a real support plan are both present, is what allowed a capable person to actually become the leader others were not yet sure he could be.
-- Dr. Rhonda
The Next Step: A promotion based on potential needs a plan for growth. In The Decisions That Move People Forward™, bring a real people decision and work through the evidence, the support it needs, and your next step. Join the workshop.
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