What You Lose Every Time You Get Promoted

Organizations rarely name what actually happens when you get promoted: each transition destroys your identity. The capabilities and ways of working that made you successful at one level become obsolete at the next. Every promotion is not an expansion of capability. It is the death of one professional identity and the birth of another. And that destruction follows a recursive pattern that compounds with every promotion.

The recursive pattern

When you move from individual contributor to manager, you lose the satisfaction of creating tangible output and must find meaning in developing others. When you move from manager to manager of managers, you lose direct contact with individual development and must find meaning in shaping systems. When you move to organizational leadership, you lose decisive ownership of your domain and must find meaning in collaborative deliberation with peers.

Each transition asks you to surrender the identity and capabilities that made you successful at the previous level. The engineering manager who writes code at night isn’t integrating her technical skills. She’s trying to keep a dead identity on life support.

And each time, the new identity is more abstract:

IC identity: “I wrote this code. I designed this system.” You can point to the thing you made today.
Manager identity: “My team shipped this feature.” You can still see the output, even if your hands didn’t create it.
Manager of Managers identity: “The organization delivered these results.” The causal chain is longer.
Organizational Leader identity: “We navigated this tension productively and made a better collective decision.” Your contribution is the quality of the deliberative process itself, almost entirely invisible.

Each level is harder to inhabit, harder to feel competent in, provides less immediate satisfaction. The grief compounds because just when you’ve finally learned to derive meaning from the abstraction, just when you’ve built a new professional identity and found your footing, you get promoted. You spend two years discovering that your value comes from developing your team rather than doing the work yourself. You finally feel the satisfaction when someone you coached has a breakthrough. And then we promote you. That direct development work you just learned to love? Not your job anymore.

The refuge of power

Leaders retreat to what they know, seeking refuge in an identity they know how to inhabit. Where they can still feel competent. Where their expertise still matters in ways they can directly experience. Where they have control over variables that produce tangible outcomes.

When you can no longer derive identity from what you produce, you grab for identity through what you can control. Power becomes the refuge from abstraction and loss. You reach for certainty because deciding means you don’t have to sit in ambiguity. You seek visibility because when people do what you say, you can see your impact. You tighten control because determining outcomes means you’re not dependent on others. You validate your expertise by ensuring people defer to you, proving you still matter.

The CEO who micromanages is seeking the feeling of competence through control because they never successfully grieved the loss of hands-on creation. The executive who dominates meetings is grasping for the certainty of “being right” because the ambiguity of collaborative deliberation provides no ground to stand on.

Organizations full of individually capable leaders become toxic political environments because they promoted people into identity-destroying transitions without support. But this isn’t only psychological failure. It’s structural design. Organizations reward executives who “take charge” and “drive results,” language that encodes a bias toward unilateral control over collaborative deliberation. The very behaviors that indicate unprocessed grief are the ones that get celebrated and compensated.

Power is what you reach for when you’re drowning in abstraction and loss. The organizational debt of eroded trust, broken relationships, alliance-building instead of collaboration isn’t a failure of process or skills. It’s unprocessed grief manifesting as destructive behavior.

What I observe in those who navigate this well

The people who make it through these transitions share something I find interesting: they work as if they’re managing one team, the people who report directly to them. Not the team below them. Not peer domains. Not work that now belongs to their reports. Just their team.

This pattern holds at every level. The manager focuses on their direct reports (the ICs). The manager of managers focuses on their direct reports (the managers). The functional leader focuses on their direct reports (the senior managers). The organizational leader focuses on their direct reports and their peers as their working team.

When leaders violate that boundary, managing past their directs or trying to control peer domains, they seem to be using positional power to avoid grief. Staying in an old identity by force. What they’re missing is operational clarity about where their actual leverage is. A manager trying to manage two levels down is working on variables they don’t actually control. Their direct report sits between them and that team. Any attempt to go around them either undermines authority or wastes energy on influence they don’t have.

The leaders who navigate transitions well appear clearer about the actual nature of their work. They identify where their leverage is and stay focused there. But holding that boundary seems to require staying with discomfort when every instinct tells you to reach for the familiar.

What I notice in those who make it through is something that might be called the discipline of non-interference. The capacity to not act when action would provide comfort but undermine others’ development. Leadership as restraint practiced at scale. The hardest transition isn’t learning new skills. It’s learning when not to use the skills that made you successful. Tolerating the space where you’re not the hero, not the expert, not the decider. They hold the boundary as a commitment that seems to force them to discover what contribution means at this level.

What enables someone to stay there long enough to discover new sources of meaning? Those who make it through begin to notice impact in forms they didn’t previously recognize as contribution. They start to see that the abstract work (the quality of a deliberation, the strength of a system, the capability of their team) actually does produce something real, even if their hands never touch it. The question becomes: can you stay in the not-knowing long enough to discover what satisfaction feels like at this level of abstraction?

The expanding scope

What changes at each level isn’t the principle of “manage your team.” What changes is the scope of what you must consider. But here’s the paradox: your scope expands while your leverage contracts.

Manager: your team’s work, how it fits into the broader function, coordination with adjacent teams
Manager of Managers: the entire functional domain, resource allocation, functional strategy
Functional Leader: your function’s role in organizational strategy, dependencies with other functions, how your decisions affect the whole company
Organizational Leader: the entire enterprise (market dynamics, competitive landscape, cross-functional tradeoffs, long-term viability)

Yet at every level, you still only directly manage one team. The challenge becomes: How do I make good decisions that account for this massive scope of consideration, when my direct control is limited to developing this small group of people who report to me?

The organization works because everyone is applying the same principle at their level. Each person managing their team, considering their scope, with that same discipline recursing down through every layer.

The reframe

At every level, the people who report to you are contributors. They’re just contributing different things:

ICs contribute technical output, functional execution, tangible deliverables
Managers contribute team capability, people development, coordinated execution
Managers of Managers contribute organizational systems, functional strategy, leadership capacity
Functional Leaders contribute cross-functional integration, organizational outcomes, strategic direction

You’re always managing contributors. The nature of their contribution changes, but your job remains the same: enable your contributors to contribute at their level.

And you yourself are a contributor to the level you report to. The manager contributes team capability to the manager of managers. The functional leader contributes cross-functional integration to the organizational leadership team. Everyone is simultaneously managing contributors below them and contributing to the level above them.

You don’t stop being a contributor when you become a manager. You become a different kind of contributor. You don’t stop managing contributors. You manage contributors whose contribution is enabling other contributors. The grief isn’t “I’m no longer a contributor.” It’s “my form of contribution has changed.”

What we’re really asking

Becoming an organizational leader means surrendering decisive control and unilateral authority (the very capabilities that defined functional leadership excellence) and finding meaning in something maximally abstract: the quality of collective deliberation itself. You must derive satisfaction from outcomes you don’t fully control. You must feel competent at work that produces no tangible artifacts. You must find meaning in the deliberative process rather than in decisive action. Your contribution is the quality of your engagement with peers, an identity that only exists in relationship and can’t be fully controlled by any individual.

That’s grief work. Until we name it as such, we’ll keep promoting people into identity-destroying transitions without support, creating the organizational debt of broken relationships and toxic politics, then wondering why smart, capable leaders keep struggling with cross-functional collaboration.

Navigating these transitions requires yet another surrender of what made you successful, yet another grief process for what you’ve lost, and yet another discovery of meaning in increasing abstraction. All while everyone pretends it’s just learning new collaboration skills.

photo by CHUTTERSNAP

One more time: How do I lead by example?

You don’t. You never do.

Leading by example is based on a faulty assumption: that people will see only the behavior you want them to see and follow only the behavior you want them to follow.

News flash: the people who work with you see everything.

They see not only what you want them to see but they also see what you don’t want them to see.

They see not only what you do but they also see what you don’t do and what you choose not to do.

They see what you choose to do or not to do and to whom.

They see what you choose to do or not to do and for whom.

As a matter of fact, the more time they spend with you, the more clearly you reveal yourself to them. The longer they observe you, the less what you say matters. What matters more are your actions – and specifically how consistent they are over time.

They see when and how often you tell them what to do.

They see when and how often you ask for their opinion.

They see when and how often you admit not knowing something.

They see when and how often you admit you made a mistake.

They see when and how often you apologize… and when and how often you apologize in public when you offended in public.

They see when, how often, and how well you listen.

They see when and how often you praise in public. And how specific your praise is: not the anemic “good job!” but rather a vigorous acknowledgment of what exactly a team member does well and how that contributes to the good of the team.

In addition to being based on a faulty assumption, “leading by example” might also be caused by attribution bias (you believe that your behavior has caused theirs, that your “leading” has caused their “following”) or by buying into the narrative of the “heroic manager” (what I call the “Gandhi complex”). But that will have to wait for another post.

These are thoughts on the book I am writing. They were first delivered to readers of my free, monthly newsletter. It’s easy to subscribe… and unsubscribe.

[Update 2026: I followed this observation to its logical conclusion—and it led somewhere unexpected. See Abandon All Hope of Mattering.]

A genius is the one most like himself: Thelonious Monk’s tips for musicians

I’m a jazz fan, always have been. And I’m a Monk fan.

Monk created this list when a musician joined his band for a multiple-week gig.

I encourage the managers I work with to have a readme document for themselves and to have a structured, personal way of welcoming new members to their team. It also goes a long way for that welcoming to include peers.

In any case, here’s Monk’s list. What does yours look like?

Just because you’re not a drummer, doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep time.
Pat your foot & sing the melody in your head, when you play.
Stop playing all that bullshit, those weird notes, play the melody!
Make the drummer sound good.
Discrimination is important.
You’ve got to dig it to dig it, you dig?
All reet!
Always know… (monk [backwards])
It must be always night, otherwise they wouldn’t need the lights.
Let’s lift the band stand!!
I want to avoid the hecklers.
Don’t play the piano part, I’m playing that. Don’t listen to me. I’m supposed to be accompanying you!
The inside of the tune (the bridge) is the part that makes the outside sound good.
Don’t play everything (or every time); let some things go by. Some music just imagined.
What you don’t play can be more important than what you do.
Always leave them wanting more.
A note can be small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination.
Stay in shape! Sometimes a musician waits for a gig, & when it comes, he’s out of shape & can’t make it.
When you’re swinging, swing some more!
(What should we wear tonight?) Sharp as possible!
Don’t sound anybody for a gig, just be on the scene.
These pieces were written so as to have something to play, & to get cats interested enough to come to rehearsal.
You’ve got it! If you don’t want to play, tell a joke or dance, but in any case, you got it! (to a drummer who didn’t want to solo).
Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along & do it. A genius is the one most like himself.
They tried to get me to hate white people, but someone would always come along & spoil it.

Source: Open culture

Here’s why you are skeptical about empowerment

The principle: Humans crave independence and control so giving it to them at work should be a good thing.

The caveat: As people feel increasingly autonomous, they can also become unmoored from others’ needs, expectations and social norms.

Research results: Managers who value being respected will respond to empowerment initiatives by, in turn, empowering their workers. But, managers who value being in charge will respond to empowerment initiatives by closely controlling and dominating their employees.

In other words, empowerment can lead to more autonomous employees, but micromanagers will micromanage.

— from a journal article by Nicholas Hays and Russell E. Johnson of Michigan State University, and Hun Whee Lee from Ohio State University.

How should I react when an employee is not performing well or makes a mistake?

Frustration is of course the natural response — and one we all can identify with. Especially if the mistake hurts an important project or reflects badly upon us.

The traditional approach is to reprimand the employee in some way. The hope is that some form of punishment will be beneficial: it will teach the employee a lesson. However, some managers choose a different response when confronted by an underperforming employee: compassion and curiosity. Not that a part of them isn’t frustrated or exasperated but they are able to suspend judgment and may even be able to use the moment to do a bit of coaching.

What does research say is best? The more compassionate response will get you more powerful results. The more employees look up to their leaders and are moved by their compassion or kindness, the more loyal they become to them. Conversely, responding with anger or frustration erodes loyalty. (Harvard Business Review)

There is probably something in your personal experience that confirms this. I know there were plenty of instances in mine.

From the September 2020 issue of my newsletter. “On management and strategy” is a free, monthly newsletter in which I share my own writing as well as links to articles and research on management, leadership, and strategy. It’s easy to subscribe… and unsubscribe.

We can overcome our empathy deficit

Given our current circumstances after six months of the pandemic, and not being anywhere near a new normal, you would think that we would be sensitive to the realities of the people around us. Well, according to Scientific American, it turns out we’re not. (( https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-us-has-an-empathy-deficit accessed 200918))

Empathy is a powerful force and human beings need it. Here are three things that might help to remedy our collective empathy deficit:

Take the time to ask those you encounter how they are feeling, and really listen. Try to put yourself in their shoes. Remember that we all tend to underestimate other people’s emotional distress, and we’re most likely to do so when those people are different from us.

Remind yourself that almost everyone is at the end of their rope these days. Many people barely have enough energy to handle their own problems, so they don’t have their normal ability to think about yours.

Finally, be aware that what is empathy for one person may not be empathy for another person. It’s not a concept that speaks for itself. Asking your friends, family, and coworkers what empathy is for them might open a new door to understanding and helping those around us.

How do I know my people won’t watch Netflix all day?

I don’t follow my newsletter’s ((https://brisebois.substack.com)) stats. I put out what I think is useful information for my readers and they comment on what works and what doesn’t. Also, I often post links to articles that readers themselves send me (keep ’em coming!).

I don’t follow my newsletter’s stats but I received an email from the platform that one link in particular in last month’s newsletter was clicked a lot more than others. It is to an article in Fortune by Laura Vanderkam ((https://fortune.com/author/laura-vanderkam/)) titled “Working from home poses serious dangers for employers and employees alike.” It seems to have hit a nerve, what with people working from home ((https://richardbrisebois.com/2020/05/29/a-friendly-reminder/))…

Here’s Laura’s answer:

Netflix isn’t the real danger. The real danger is that without a physical separation between work and the rest of life, people won’t ever stop working—risking burnout, which has huge costs for employees and their organizations. Wise managers address this, rather than worrying that people will slack the second they aren’t being watched.

Asking employees how they are –how they really are– goes a long way in building rapport and establishing credibility.

Let’s get rid of the performance review

Samuel Colbert says that

a one-side-accountable, boss-administered review is little more than a dysfunctional pretense. It’s a negative to corporate performance, an obstacle to straight-talk relationships, and a prime cause of low morale at work. Even the mere knowledge that such an event will take place damages daily communications and teamwork.

His solution? Performance previews:

reciprocally accountable discussions about how boss and employee are going to work together even more effectively than they did in the past. Previews weld fates together. The boss’s skin is now in the game.

In my experience, the workplace is not that dialogical. I side with Lucy Kellaway at the FT: few managers talk or think like that. Yet. Among other things because they have to take part in the same process themselves.