A promotion should explain the authority it gives

A promotion discussion often begins with a person everyone wants to recognise. The colleague solves difficult problems, supports customers and has become the reference point for a technical question. The proposed next step is to give them a team. That can be appropriate, but it is not a conclusion that follows automatically from their contribution. Managing colleagues introduces a different responsibility, and the company owes both the candidate and the team an explanation of why that responsibility is being assigned.

I have supported promotions without making this distinction carefully enough. In a growing technology-services business, the demand for managers can make a familiar technical leader seem like the obvious answer. They know the work, other people already ask for help and a client may recognise their authority. We tell ourselves that a management course will fill the remaining gap. Sometimes it does. Sometimes we have confused being the strongest person to solve a problem with being the person who can help others work, develop and make decisions without constant dependence.

## Describe the work before discussing the title

The first useful question is what the proposed manager will decide. Will they allocate work among people with different levels of experience? Will they give a capable colleague unwelcome feedback? Will they address a concern about someone who is commercially important? These responsibilities should be described in ordinary language. A broad statement about leadership potential can conceal disagreement about the job itself. One executive may expect a technical coordinator, while another expects someone to handle difficult employment conversations and make staffing choices across several assignments.

At Praneri, we reviewed thirty-six proposed promotions through that lens in 2024. We used practical situations to explore how candidates would reason about work allocation, feedback and escalation. The exercise was not a search for a polished answer delivered in the correct vocabulary. We wanted to know what the person noticed, what they would ask and where they understood the limits of their authority. Technical performance remained relevant, but it no longer settled the whole question. The operating leaders had to participate because HR could not define their management responsibilities for them.

The distinction made some conversations harder. Regional leaders had planned appointments around new contracts and did not welcome uncertainty late in the process. Candidates had heard encouraging signals and reasonably expected progression. I would handle that sequence differently now: explain the possible paths before nominations are presented as a promise. A sound assessment introduced after expectations have hardened can still feel like an arbitrary obstacle. The quality of the process includes the timing of the conversation, not only the method used to reach its conclusion.

## Give expertise a route worth choosing

It is easy to say that not everyone needs to manage people. That statement has little value if senior pay, influence and recognition remain available only through a management title. A company can celebrate specialists in its language while teaching them through its decisions that expertise is a lower-status route. The resulting pressure is predictable. People accept teams they do not particularly want to lead because declining would limit their progression. Managers then inherit a problem that the career system helped create, while HR describes it as an individual development need.

Our executive team agreed that the specialist path needed comparable pay opportunity and a defined area of technical authority. Comparable did not mean that every role had identical scope or every candidate received the same increase. It meant that a colleague could advance through valuable expertise without collecting direct reports to justify the decision. We also had to explain how a specialist would work with managers, so that technical authority did not become an informal and competing reporting line. A second path creates clarity only if its responsibilities are understood by the people who will rely on it.

Of the thirty-six candidates, twenty-two were ready for the management responsibilities under consideration. Eight preferred the specialist path after discussing its scope, and six needed further preparation. Those categories should not be compressed into a promotion success rate. The six remained in their existing roles, and the eight were not failed managers placed in a consolation category. Each outcome needed an individual explanation. The company accepted later appointments in some places and interim supervision in others, because a vacancy date could not provide evidence that a person was ready to carry the responsibility.

## Continue the assessment after appointment

No exercise can reproduce all the pressures a new manager will face. A person may reason well in a structured discussion and struggle when a client is angry or a senior colleague challenges their decision. That does not make the original assessment pointless. It means appointment should begin a period of observation and support, rather than close the question. I want the new manager's own manager to review actual decisions: how work was distributed, whether feedback was specific and whether an unresolved concern reached someone with authority to act.

Specialist progression also needs review. A company may initially define the role well, then gradually ask the specialist to supervise people without acknowledging the change. That can happen because colleagues trust them or because formal managers are stretched. The new arrangement should be examined rather than allowed to develop as an invisible compromise. Expertise can involve mentoring and influence without full people-management authority. If the business genuinely needs the latter, it should make that decision explicitly, with the person's agreement, preparation and a clear reporting structure.

Directors considering management succession should ask for evidence of the responsibilities ahead, not simply a catalogue of past technical achievement. They should also understand whether the company offers credible alternatives to people who contribute differently. This is not a request for the board to run promotion panels or interview every candidate. It is a question about whether the management system recognises the work it needs and prepares people to do it. A strong succession paper should explain the gaps and the cost of waiting alongside the reasons to appoint.

I now regard a promotion as a transfer of responsibility that deserves its own account. Recognition is part of it, but cannot be the entire rationale. The candidate should know what will change; colleagues should know what authority the person holds; and the business should know who will help them succeed. When those answers are explicit, technical achievement and management capability can both receive serious respect. When they are left vague, a title can conceal a decision that nobody has fully made, until the team experiences its consequences.