The Real Reason Your Team Won’t Level Up

April took over as president of Atlas Surveying after losing her husband, the founder, two years ago. The company had grown from five to 150 people across four offices in the Southeast. Her biggest challenge: turning skilled technicians into people leaders. Most of her supervisors had been promoted because they were excellent at the technical work—surveying, math, operating instruments—not because they knew how to manage or develop others. As she put it, they were trying to teach people how to manage people when those supervisors "never necessarily were even managed themselves" because of how fast the company had grown.

The Hidden Cost of Promoting Technical Talent

Head coach John Felkins identified a pattern April had already seen in her own business. When you promote someone with strong technical skills into a leadership role without preparing them, "you lose a good technician and gain a bad leader." April confirmed this had happened. In one case, the employee came to them and said, "This isn't working. Can I go back to my role?" The instinct is often to push through, but Felkins noted that some people are better suited for job management—managing processes and projects—rather than people leadership. The key is recognizing the difference and creating roles that fit, rather than forcing everyone into the same leadership track.