Why New Leaders Struggle and How You Can Help...Moving into a leadership role for the first time should be a time of celebration for both leader and the organization. Yet often, once the initial excitement dies, it can feel like a real struggle… again, for both leader and the organization.
No matter if you’re hiring a leader from outside the organization or promoting from within, the responsibility of a new leaders success is on the organization. 
Oooo… I can hear a pin drop in the silence right now. 
Nevertheless, it is true. From the selection process, to integration, to the return on investment – the organization is ultimately responsible for the success of any new leader. 
That’s not to say that the new leader doesn’t bear some burden… they do. They must be willing to put forth effort to learn, acclimate, earn respect, and achieve results. But whether or not a new leader is set up to succeed or fail is the responsibility of the organization.

Real-life Example – 
I once applied with the Texas Department of Health and Human Services for a position as a Risk Management Director. This job would oversee the safety and security of a 104 acre facility that housed over 300 residents with intellectual disabilities, as well as 1100+ employees who were charged with their care. 
This job had a major focus on Disaster Response and Recovery because it was located in an area prone to natural disasters, environmental disasters, and violence. Moreover, the facility was a media target due to some circumstances that made national headlines two years earlier.
Being me, with my thirst for challenges, I looked forward to this opportunity to join the Executive ranks of a state government agency. 
Upon my hiring, I quickly realized that I was taking a position that had been vacant and completely neglected for over two years. Due to this neglect, the entire culture around safety, security, risk management, disaster response and recovery – as well as a myriad of other areas that fell into my charge – had fallen into basic non-existence.
Every policy had to be re-written, updated, or re-evaluated… indeed, an entire new culture had to be created. It was clear my work had been cut out for me. But I happily looked forward to it.
The first thing I did was to seek out my supervisor’s input on the state of my area of responsibility. That’s when she told me that she had absolutely no experience in my department and, furthermore, had no idea where I could obtain help.
So I went up the chain of command to find the resources I needed to be effective in my new job. At every turn, no one knew how to help me… no one else understood my job. Moreover, after several months of sitting in executive staff meetings, I came to realize that the majority of the executive team had no idea about their own jobs.
In the end, I found the resources and education needed, learned what I needed to learn, and developed a damn good program that is still in use today, years after I left. But what I discovered along the way was one of the major reasons why newly appointed leaders struggle – and many times – fail. Moreover, I learned why entire organizations struggle so badly.

The Peter Principle

Fortunately for me, I was hired from outside the organization to fill my role. But what encountered in my journey – and struggle – to properly do my job was that the Peter Principle is alive and prominent… even in governmental agencies.
The Peter Principle is a special case of a ubiquitous observation: Anything that works will be used in progressively more challenging applications until it fails. This is the "generalized Peter principle". 
In other words, there is much temptation to use what has worked before, even when it may exceed its effective scope. This includes people promoted from within an organization to the executive ranks.
This principle is a concept in management theory (formulated by Laurence J. Peter) in which the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."
Now, I’m not using the word “incompetence” as an insult toward anyone. I’m simply stating that many people get promoted to a point where they are in over their heads.
That is the responsibility of the organization.
Rather than provide newly appointed leaders with the needed training resources, testing, and mentorship, many organizations just assume that the newly appointed can “handle it” because they always have before – all while failing to realize that the new position may be outside a person’s skill set.
In an organizational structure, assessing an employee's potential for a promotion is often based on their performance in the current job. This eventually results in their being promoted to their highest level of competence and potentially then to a role in which they are not competent, referred to as their "level of incompetence". The employee has no chance of further promotion, thus reaching their career's ceiling in an organization.
The Peter Principle suggests that, "In time, every position tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties". Soon – as in my example – you have an executive team full of people who do not know what they are doing.

Here’s another example – 
Programmers make up the majority of entry level roles in software companies. These people have highly developed technical skills, developed during years of study of the subject, and pay great attention to detail. A successful programmer will usually, after an appropriate time, be offered a promotion. That's what tends to happen in a hierarchy, and the prospect of a career path is what attracts many people to entry-level jobs in these organizations.
Once our programmer becomes a Senior Engineer, he'll (let's say it's a "he") be dealing with more challenging projects. But he'll still be using the same skills, just at a more advanced level. So far, so good. Then, the time comes for him to be promoted again, and this time he's made a manager, in charge of a team of programmers.
Here's where things can start to go wrong. While his knowledge of the company, its products and its clients mean that he's well placed to be managing a department, he may not have the interpersonal communication skills needed to handle people, or liaise with other teams and senior management. His attention to detail and technical expertise are no longer useful to him in this new role, and the result is that his performance has become poor.
If he can't improve his “people skills”, he'll never be promoted again. And because people are rarely demoted in a hierarchy, he'll remain at that level – his level of "incompetence" – doing a bad job. Not only will this make him unhappy, but the organization suffers too.
Taken to its extreme, many of the roles in the upper part of a hierarchical organization may be occupied by people who are not particularly good at their jobs.



How to avoid the Peter Principle

1. Assist New Leaders in Assimilation – Too often, a newly hired executive’s assimilation to an organization’s practices, policies and culture are left to chance and personal initiative. 
While U.S. culture values a “bootstraps” mentality, leaving new executives to their own devices and expecting them to learn about the organization on their own can lead to errors in judgment, poor decision making, and misinterpretation of the organization’s culture. In short, many new executives end up “shooting themselves in the foot,” alienating superiors and co-workers and polarizing the workplace. 
2. Don’t assume that everyone knows how to lead – Especially for first-time managers. Provide top-performers with leadership development training early and often. Look for ways to help them to broaden their skills and leadership repertoire for even bigger situations ahead. Most new leaders would benefit from coaching rather than being thrown to the wolves only to discover that they’re failing miserably.
3. Create a Management Advancement Program (MAP) – A MAP program holds many benefits and opportunities for the motivated employee who seeks and needs additional challenges on the job. It affords them opportunities to learn leadership skills, demonstrate initiative, and test additional responsibilities before advancing into new positions. It also affords them opportunities to grow, to be challenged and to feel like an important and valued member of the team. 
For the hierarchy, a MAP program affords opportunities to retain valuable employees, attract new high-quality employees, and maintain a workforce of well-trained highly motivated employees. This – in turn – will provide higher quality work to the organization. A MAP program is a "win-win" situation for everyone and can avoid the Peter Principle.


HR and talent management professionals can help new executives acclimate to their new roles and/or organizations by ensuring they have the knowledge and tools needed to succeed. This responsibility is not a one-time action; it is an ongoing process that starts before they are hired and continues throughout their careers.

It is in the best interest of everyone involved if an organization spends the time and resources necessary to develop leaders before they become leaders. And in the event that isn’t possible, provide newly appointed leaders with the resources they need immediately. 
Believe it or not, your ROI – indeed, your bottom line – depends on it.


Learn, Lead, Achieve!


Joe Vulgamore is a Life Coach and Leadership Development Specialist - as well as a Personal Development Author and Speaker. He works with people to develop life and leadership skills to sharpen their edge, perform at optimum levels, and achieve excellence. He has 30 years of leadership experience and a proven track record of helping thousands of people from over 14 countries, across 5 continents, to make life-transformations through one-to-one coaching and workshops.