Promotion Doesn’t Make You Better

It Changes Your ArenaPhoto by Nastuh Abootalebi on Unsplash

She was the best product manager in the company. Delivered consistently. Built strong relationships. Solved complex problems. When the director role opened, she was the obvious choice. Everyone agreed she earned it.

She was an excellent Athlete. Well suited for this Arena.

Athlete (the Leader): Your psychological machinery (personality, neural patterns, cognitive style, emotional regulation, communication) that determines how you lead.

Six months later, she was struggling. Same intelligence. Same work ethic. Same commitment. But somehow nothing was working. Her detailed approach looked like micromanagement at the director level. Her hands-on problem-solving looked like inability to delegate. Her relationship focus looked like she couldn’t make hard decisions.

The feedback was confusing: “You need to be more strategic. Stop getting into the weeds. Focus on the big picture.” But she’d succeeded precisely by getting into the weeds, by solving problems directly, by building relationships through hands-on work.

Nobody told her the game had changed. Promotion didn’t make her better or worse. It changed her Arena.

Arena: The six environmental forces (threat level, resource availability, volatility, tempo, incentive structures, and scale) that determine which of your leadership strengths will work and which will backfire.

The Competency Collapse

This pattern shows up everywhere. High performers get promoted and suddenly struggle. We call it “promoted to incompetence” or “hitting your ceiling.” We conclude they reached the limits of their capability.

But it’s more complicated than that. What’s happening is that the new role’s environmental demands don’t match their leadership machinery. The traits and approaches that made them successful at the previous level become liabilities at the new level.

This is the competency collapse. Not because competence disappeared, but because the Arena changed in ways that transformed strengths into weaknesses.

The product manager who succeeded through detailed problem-solving now leads other product managers. Her detailed approach that prevented errors at the individual contributor level creates bottlenecks at the director level. She needs to delegate and trust, but her machinery is built for direct problem-solving.

The sales rep who succeeded through relationship intensity now leads a sales region. His personal connection that built client loyalty doesn’t scale to leading fifty reps across three states. He needs systems and structure, but his machinery is built for personal connection.

The engineer who succeeded through technical depth now leads an engineering team. Her precision that produced excellent code creates rigidity when leading people who work differently. She needs flexibility and tolerance, but her machinery is built for technical exactness.

Same people. New Arenas. Predictable collapse.

What Actually Changed

Promotion changes three Arena forces that most organizations never measure: tempo, scale, and incentive structure.

Tempo changes because leadership roles typically involve more real-time decision-making with less time for deep analysis. The thoughtful processor who succeeded by thinking carefully through technical problems now needs to make rapid judgment calls with incomplete information. The Arena’s tempo increased, but nobody told them their processing style needs to change too.

Photo by Eddi Aguirre on Unsplash

Scale changes because leadership roles involve more people and more complexity. The extravert who succeeded by building deep personal relationships with a small team now leads a department where personal relationships with everyone are impossible. The Arena’s scale increased beyond their relational bandwidth.

Incentive structure changes because leadership roles reward different behaviors. Individual contributor roles reward personal achievement and technical excellence. Leadership roles reward developing others and achieving through people. The person who succeeded by being the best performer now needs to succeed by making others perform better. Different game. Different rules.

These changes can be seismic shifts in environmental demands. But we act like promotion is a straightforward progression of more responsibility rather than a shift to a completely different Arena requiring different machinery.

Why Organizations Keep Making This Mistake

Promoting high performers makes intuitive sense. They’ve proven they can do the work. They’ve earned recognition. They’re ready for more responsibility.

But this logic only works if the new role requires the same machinery amplified. If it requires different machinery entirely, promoting high performers is essentially random selection.

The best salesperson doesn’t automatically become the best sales manager. The best engineer doesn’t automatically become the best engineering leader. The best operator doesn’t automatically become the best executive. Because these roles require fundamentally different capabilities operating in fundamentally different Arenas.

Organizations make this mistake because they don’t measure Arena forces explicitly. They see “leadership” as one continuous progression rather than as fundamentally different games at different levels. They promote people based on current performance without assessing whether their machinery matches the new Arena’s demands.

Then they’re surprised when 40–60% of external executives fail within the first 18 months. Or when 60% of leaders promoted internally struggle in their new roles. The research on leadership failure is clear: most failures aren’t due to lack of capability. They’re due to capability-context mismatch.

The Harvard Research

Boris Groysberg at Harvard studied what happens when star performers move to new organizations. He found that performance didn’t transfer. Stars who dominated in one environment struggled when they moved, even when moving to similar roles at similar companies.

His conclusion: performance is less portable than we assume because it depends on the fit between the person’s approach and their specific environment. When that environment changes, performance changes.

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

The same logic applies to promotion. Performance at one level doesn’t predict performance at the next because the environmental demands change fundamentally. We keep acting like promotion is just “more of the same” when it’s actually “completely different game.”

What Should Happen

Before promoting anyone, diagnose the Arena they’re moving into. Measure threat level, volatility, tempo, scale, incentive structure, and resource availability in the new role. Not vaguely. Specifically.

Then assess whether their psychological machinery matches those new demands. Does their processing speed match the new tempo? Does their relational style work at the new scale? Do their default behaviors align with the new incentive structure?

Alignment: The multiplicative fit between your Athlete profile and your Arena forces. When aligned, strengths compound. When misaligned, strengths become weaknesses.

If the fit is good, promote them. If the fit is questionable, have an honest conversation about what will need to change. If the fit is poor, don’t promote them. It’s not doing them a favor. It’s setting them up for public failure in a misaligned Arena.

People can still grow into new roles, but we must be explicit about which specific capacities need development and whether those capacities are realistically developable given the person’s wiring.

Some gaps can be closed with targeted development. A deep processor can learn decision frameworks that help them move faster. A direct communicator can learn diplomatic approaches. An individual contributor can learn to delegate.

But some gaps are structural. If someone’s entire success comes from personal relationships and the new role requires leading at scale through systems, that’s not a development gap. That’s a fundamental machinery mismatch.

What Leaders Can Do

If you’re being considered for promotion, ask explicit questions about the Arena you’d be entering. Not just “what are the responsibilities” but “what are the environmental forces?”

Photo by Nikolas Noonan on Unsplash

How fast does this role move? Do I have time to think, or do I need to decide rapidly?

How many people am I influencing? Can I maintain personal relationships, or do I need systems?

What gets rewarded here? Is success about my personal performance or about developing others?

How volatile is this context? Can I plan systematically, or do I need to pivot constantly?

These questions may make you feel like you’re backing away from challenge, but hat’s not true. They’re helping you evaluate whether your machinery matches the new Arena’s demands. If it does, the promotion will amplify your strengths. If it doesn’t, the promotion will expose your limitations.

Some promotions are growth opportunities. Others are misalignment traps. The difference isn’t obvious until you measure the Arena forces explicitly.

The Bottom Line

Promotion changes the game you’re playing. It doesn’t just add more responsibility. It fundamentally shifts the environmental demands.

Your competence didn’t disappear. The Arena changed in ways that made your strengths less relevant and your limitations more visible.

That’s not failure. That’s physics.

Photo by Roman Mager on Unsplash

Before you accept the next promotion, diagnose the Arena. Measure the forces. Ask whether your machinery matches the demands.

If it does, great. Take the opportunity and thrive.

If it doesn’t, be strategic. Negotiate the role to better fit your machinery. Develop targeted capacities that close specific gaps. Or recognize that this particular Arena isn’t where your machinery works best.

You don’t need to be capable everywhere. You need to be strategic about where you put your machinery.

Promotion doesn’t make you better. It changes your Arena.

Know the difference.

G. Damon Wells is an Army colonel and author of the upcoming book “ Right Leader, Wrong Arena ,” which helps leaders diagnose Arena-Athlete Alignment before accepting new roles. Subscribe for updates.

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