Earlier this week, I was speaking with one of my leadership mentoring clients. This particular leader manages a geographic region for a multinational organisation experiencing major growth and a positive restructuring.

As part of that change, their regional Senior Management Team (SMT) was being asked to evolve into a Senior Leadership Team (SLT). On paper, the change sounded simple. In practice, it was anything but.

The leader was frustrated. Members of the SMT who had been outstanding in their roles were struggling to adapt to their new leadership remit.

I asked a simple question:

“Do the team truly understand the difference between their old and new roles, and the expectations that come with that?”

After a moment of reflection, the answer was revealing, not really.

This is a pattern I see often. Highly capable managers, driven and technically skilled, are promoted into leadership positions but struggle to thrive. It is especially common in industries where expertise is built on technical mastery, such as healthcare, IT, and finance. The very skills that make someone excellent in their role do not necessarily prepare them for the demands of leading others.

This is not a failure of the individual. Nor does it mean they are not leadership material. It is a predictable outcome of what Laurence J. Peter famously described in The Peter Principle (1969): people are promoted to their level of relative incompetence.

While Peter identified the problem, he stopped short of offering a solution. What he missed, and what still holds true today, is the dual responsibility for growth: both the individual and the organisation must play their part.

The Individual’s Responsibility

Progression should be more than a new title, a pay rise, or a sense of status. True leadership begins with self-awareness.
Aspiring leaders must look beyond what made them successful so far and recognise that new roles require new mindsets. The transition from doing to leading is rarely intuitive. It requires unlearning as much as learning, and that can be uncomfortable. I’ll be diving deeper into this in a future blog.

The Organisation’s Responsibility

Equally, organisations have a crucial role to play. Too often, they assume potential leaders will naturally “step up” once promoted. That assumption is both unfair and costly. Leadership capability must be cultivated deliberately and contextually, not through generic training or tick-box programmes.

So, what can organisations do to create real readiness for leadership?

1. Create Real Leadership Opportunities

Give aspiring leaders genuine accountability.

• Stretch assignments: Assign ownership of initiatives that matter and have measurable outcomes.
• Cross-functional projects: Encourage them to lead beyond their area of expertise to develop strategic thinking.
• Shadowing senior leaders: Provide exposure to executive-level decisions, customer negotiations, and board discussions.

2. Build a Culture of Mentorship and Sponsorship

Mentorship helps people grow. Sponsorship helps them progress.

• Mentors offer guidance and reflection.
• Sponsors advocate for talent in the rooms where decisions are made.
  Pair emerging leaders with both. It signals trust and accelerates development.

3. Foster Psychological Safety and a Growth Culture

Leadership growth requires environments where people can experiment, make mistakes, and learn.

• Encourage small, safe failures that lead to big learning.
• Model openness at senior levels to show that growth never stops.
• See my earlier blog on organisations that allow for mistakes here

4. Build Peer Networks and Communities of Practice

Leadership can be isolating.  Creating internal leadership circles or peer learning cohorts allows aspiring leaders to share challenges, test ideas, and learn continuously. This form of social learning is far more impactful than isolated workshops.

5. Offer Frequent, Developmental Feedback

Move away from annual performance reviews towards coaching-style feedback loops.
Train current leaders to give feedback that builds self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and resilience, the true differentiators of successful leaders.

6. Link Leadership Growth to Organisational Purpose

Leadership development should never be disconnected from purpose.
When leaders understand how their growth directly contributes to the organisation’s mission and values, engagement and retention increase significantly.

7. Recognise and Reward the Right Behaviours

Promote and reward those who develop others, not just those who deliver results.
Leadership should be measured not only by outcomes but by the quality of culture, collaboration, and trust that a leader builds.

In Summary

To help aspiring leaders truly thrive, organisations must create the conditions where growth is both possible and supported. Leadership is not learned in a classroom. It is cultivated in environments where people are trusted to stretch, supported when they stumble, and celebrated when they lift others.

That, ultimately, is how transformation becomes sustainable, when leadership development is treated not as an HR initiative, but as a strategic investment in the organisation’s future.