From Star Performer to Struggling Leader

Transforming your struggling leader to a star performer again.

What do you do when a star performer on your team, whom you have rewarded with a promotion in your technology organization is now struggling in their new leadership role?

Senior leaders who promote their star performers but end up watching them struggle with leading their technology team are typically doing one of these three things.

They are confused why a star performer is now a low performer as the new leader of their technology team.
They have decided to let their new leader “sink or swim”, expecting that they will swim BUT they are drowning.
They are watching their new leader flounder and pretending to have it all together, but the team and even the senior leader can see that they are doing a terrible job pretending and losing credibility at the same time.

If you have experienced any of these 3 situations, then you probably haven’t given your new technology leader what they need right now.

Senior leaders either take a heavy-handed approach or a light-handed approach. The problem with either of these two approaches is that both feel unsupportive to the new leader. In most cases, both approaches demotivate the new leader. And, both aren’t what the new leader needs now.