Recently, a member of the Training Journal’s discussion forum raised a knotty question – how to handle discussions about the potential for promotion to a line management role with an employee who, whilst technically competent, lacked the “people skills” for the role.  The individual concerned had asked for the opportunity to step up.  His manager wasn’t convinced he could succeed and had told him so.  Still the staff member wanted to further his career in a line management role.

Maybe you’ve encountered this kind of thing before – fielding this kind of request can be a heart-sinking moment.  Even with all the HR wizardry in the world (a clear description of the behaviours needed to succeed as a manager in your organisation, 360 degree feedback which shows where this individual’s strengths and areas for development are and so on), you face the prospect of spending more time than you really want to trying to explain why you aren’t willing to promote him.  Secretly, you may have a concern that his reasons for requesting a promotion have more to do with increasing his pay packet (or status, or some other thing) than with a real desire to manage others.  This can be a real problem when time is already at a premium.

Worse still, the pressure to promote can lead to people taking on roles for which they really don’t have the skill.  This can undermine the morale of those being managed and may have disastrous consequences for the person who has been promoted.

How do you move forward in this kind of situation?

It’s all in the framing

As long as you’re thinking “I have to persuade him he’s not suited to a line management role” and “he doesn’t understand his limitations”, you’re at risk of setting up an impasse – you persuade, he resists, you persuade some more… until you’re both frustrated and exhausted.

There is another way.  A second approach is to take a more open view – to acknowledge your view that your team member is not ready for (and even may never be suited to) a line management role, whilst agreeing to work with him to explore this as a possibility and to do this in a way which keeps the business on track, and keeps his dignity intact – whatever you both discover.

Against this backdrop, you can take a number of steps on a path of exploration:

A step-by-step approach

Here are some of the steps I recommend you take on this path of exploration:

• Explore his motivations for wanting to follow this path:  It may be obvious and still, the more you can understand his reasons for wanting to become a line manager, the more you can explore with him what ways he can meet his needs whether or not he gets the promotion he desires.  If he says he wants to have more influence in the business, for example, you may discover he’s quite happy to have coaching support to increase his ability to influence – and less concerned about promotion once he has this support;
• Let him know that promotion is not guaranteed:  Most organisations promote people when a vacancy becomes available.  If this is your policy, you need to explain this from the beginning.  Your team member needs to know the nature of the journey so that (s)he can decide whether or not (s)he wants to go ahead;   
• Let him know what you’re looking for in your line managers:  You may have a competency model or something similar to help you and even if you don’t, you still need to let your team member know what behaviours you need to see him demonstrate before (yes, before) you’re likely to support a promotion into a line management role.  The more you can help him to understand your expectations, the more he can work towards them as well as to assess, “is this really me?”;
• Seek feedback from the business:  Whether you have a fancy 360-degree questionnaire or simply time to ask people for their views, ensure that you gather feedback early on in the process about your team member’s strengths for the role and areas in which (s)he will need to develop.  This helps to “keep it real”.  Use this information as the basis for a discussion with your team member:  let him know what people are saying and explore the implications;
• Test and explore “hard truths”:  One of the most difficult aspects of this kind of exploration is when you see difficulties that your team member doesn’t appreciate – it’s easy to run away from this aspect of the discussion by telling yourself “he just doesn’t get it”.  It’s important to test your understanding with your team member and to speak honestly about your concerns, whilst also leaving ownership with him for his own choices (for example, “John, it sounds as though you believe you have the listening skills you need – is that right?  I think the feedback is telling us staff want more empathy from you, even though you think they should be able to work effectively without your understanding.  I think there’s a risk for you that, because the business can see you don’t see empathy as important (which we do), senior managers may be reluctant to promote you into a line management role.  I can help you to develop in this area but I will only do this on the basis that you understand the importance for your staff of showing them understanding”);
• Agree a development plan:  A development plan for your team member needs to highlight key strengths and how these can be leveraged to make progress (or how they may limit progress if they are used as the basis for a people management approach).  It also needs to highlight key areas for development – those areas in which your team member needs to make progress in order to be an attractive candidate for promotion;
• Give support in the form of assignments and coaching:  You can do a great deal to support your team member by giving him assignments which help him to develop in key areas, coupled with effective supervision and coaching.  Is it influencing he wants to develop?  Talk to him about the need to get buy-in from your project steering committee for an increase in funding – discuss tactics, explain why you propose certain actions, allocate actions to him.  A key to your overall success is to take a step-by-step approach, building the skills of your team member over time and making sure that any failures are relatively minor and leave his dignity as well as your business results intact;
• Include a “get out of jail free card”:  This suggestion takes us right back to the beginning –  you think your team member may not be cut out for a line management role and you may be right.  Still, using persuasion and only persuasion is unlikely to succeed.  At the same time, it’s possible that the more your team member is exposed to the responsibilities of line management the more (s)he will understand this for himself.  However, if (s)he has the faintest sense that you might be waiting to tell him “I told you so” (s)he may be reluctant to share this insight.

The return on your investment

It’s possible that the outcome from this process is that you will be surprised – discovering that, despite your worst fears, your team member slowly develops the skills needed to become a valuable member of your management team.  Going into this process with a willingness to be surprised greatly increases the chances that this may happen.

It’s possible that your worst fears will be confirmed – not only does your team member fail to make any progress towards developing the skills (s)he needs, but (s)he also fails to develop any insight into his need to develop in order to manage others effectively.  This can be frustrating for you and everyone concerned though it does seem unlikely.  I have found that it’s rare for this to happen when so much support has been given.

Finally, it’s possible that your team member will come to understand that, no, this isn’t for me.  If you’ve included the “get out jail free card” I described above, it’s also easy for him to say so.

Perhaps there’s a larger context to consider.  Hopefully, all the actions outlined above will gain the loyalty of the team member concerned – you may well become the manager he remembers with gratitude in years to come.  And if this is the experience of one team member, it’s likely also to impact the experience of your wider team.  You don’t have to spread the word (and nor does your team member) for staff to recognise something special about the organisation they work for.

What are you taking from this posting?  I look forward to your questions and comments below.