Organizations still promote the people who do their jobs best into manager roles. But doing work well and leading people well are entirely different abilities. A wrong promotion does not merely shake one person’s career; it eats away at the trust and energy of an entire team.

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In an article published in Harvard Business Review on February 10, 2026, Colleen Adler examined why organizations continue to promote the wrong people into manager roles, based on Gartner research. The core point is clear. Many companies do not see management as a specialized role. They still treat it as a reward for strong individual performance or as a gateway to career advancement. According to Gartner research, as of May 2025, one in four managers said they did not want to manage people. Two years earlier, the figure had been about one in five, which means the burden and distance people feel toward management roles have grown. In another survey conducted in July 2024 among 3,529 employees, only 38 percent said they were satisfied with their manager, and only a little more than half said they trusted their manager. These figures show how serious a fracture the manager problem has become in today’s organizations.

In companies, promotion has long carried the meaning of reward. People who did good work, delivered results, held responsibility, and endured within the organization were given higher titles and greater authority. From an organization’s point of view, this seems like a natural choice. “That person is good at their job, so they will probably lead a team well too.” Many promotions begin from this expectation.

But this is exactly where the problem starts. Being excellent as an individual contributor and being ready as a manager are entirely different matters. Excellent individual contributors complete their own work quickly and accurately. They dig deeply into problems, take responsibility for outcomes, and produce results with higher standards than others. But managers cannot succeed simply by doing their own work well. They must help other people work well. They must give direction when team members are stuck, coordinate when different opinions collide, and search for causes together when performance falters.

In other words, a manager is not an individual contributor who has moved to a higher position. A manager is someone who deals with people’s motivation and emotions, conflict and growth, team atmosphere and priorities. Creating excellent results directly and helping others create good results are completely different tasks. When this difference is missed, promotion becomes not a reward but a trap.

An employee who was doing excellent work yesterday is suddenly placed in the middle of meetings and reports, evaluations and one-on-one conversations, conflict mediation and schedule management. In the past, they could solve problems with their own expertise. Now they must also deal with other people’s pace and temperament, complaints and expectations. New managers often become unsteady at this point. If they push too hard, team members become exhausted. If they are too considerate, performance may collapse. In the end, they become distant from the work they used to do well and lose confidence in the new management role they have taken on.

The organization also loses. It loses one of its best individual contributors and gains one unprepared manager. This loss may not appear immediately in numbers. But over time, it becomes clear in the team’s atmosphere, the quality of meetings, the speed of decision-making, employee turnover, and trust in the company.

The problem of management today is not simply a problem of insufficient ability. The more fundamental problem is that many people do not want to become managers in the first place. The fact that one in four managers said in Gartner research that they did not want to manage people should not be taken lightly. This is not the complaint of a few individuals. It is a sign that management itself is becoming a less attractive role.

In the past, management roles symbolized authority and status. Becoming a team leader, department head, or executive was seen as a natural path to success. The higher one climbed, the more recognized one was thought to be. But today’s middle manager is no longer simply someone who gives instructions and receives reports. From above, they are asked for faster performance. From below, they are asked for fairer evaluations and more careful communication. The company tells managers to execute strategy while also asking them to care for team members’ emotions. It tells them to reduce costs and raise performance, to reduce conflict and increase innovation. Different demands pile up at once on one person’s desk.

The daily life of management is less glamorous than it seems. There are more moments of explaining ambiguous decisions than making grand ones. There is more listening to and adjusting small complaints than designing impressive strategies. There is satisfaction in helping team members grow, but when performance is poor, responsibility falls on the manager. Even when the company’s decisions are not fully persuasive, managers must communicate them to team members. Even when they understand team members’ difficulties, they must still uphold organizational standards. Managers are always under pressure from both above and below.

Yet many organizations promote people without sufficiently showing them what this role actually looks like. Before becoming managers, they have no real opportunity to experience what the work involves. Once they step into the role, they find a reality completely different from what they expected. From that point on, management becomes not an opportunity for growth but a burden that is hard to escape.

The reason more managers do not want the role is not that individuals lack willpower. It is that management carries too much responsibility. On top of that, there is not enough time to prepare, not enough opportunity to learn, and not enough structure for support. Under these conditions, it is difficult for management to look attractive.

The biggest mistake organizations repeatedly make is treating performance and leadership as the same ability. They assume that a salesperson with strong sales numbers will also lead a sales team well. They expect that a strong developer will also manage a development team well. They believe that someone with outstanding planning skills will naturally produce good results as the leader of a planning organization. Of course, professional expertise matters. If managers do not understand the work at all, they cannot lead the team properly. But expertise alone does not make someone a good manager.

The core of an individual contributor’s role is doing one’s own work well. The core of a manager’s role is helping others do their work well. A good manager is not the person who gives the fastest answer. A good manager is someone who asks questions, organizes problems, and connects necessary resources so that team members can find better answers themselves. A good manager is not someone who handles everything personally, but someone who assigns work to the right people and shares responsibility and authority.

This is also where high-performing individual contributors often struggle after becoming managers. They try to lead the team in the same way they succeeded as individuals. Quick judgment, high standards, and strong execution are major strengths for an individual contributor. But after becoming a manager, these strengths can sometimes become burdens. When team members cannot keep up with their speed, they become frustrated. They judge people who work in different ways as inefficient. Eventually, they think, “It would be faster if I did it myself,” and intervene directly. Then team members lose opportunities to grow, and the manager takes on even more work.

A bad manager is not necessarily a bad person. In fact, many sincere and responsible people become bad managers. They work late into the night for the team, solve problems on behalf of others, and try to take care of everything in order to protect performance. But in that process, team members lose the space to make judgments on their own. A paradox emerges in which the manager’s diligence pressures the team’s autonomy.

Therefore, the question for manager selection must change. Instead of asking, “Who has done the best work?” organizations should ask, “Who can help others improve their performance?” Instead of asking, “Who has endured the longest?” they should ask, “Who is ready to deal with people, handle conflict, and hold the team together even in uncertain situations?”

Failure in manager selection does not end as one person’s problem. To team members, the manager is the face of the company. Employees do not meet the CEO every day. They do not directly experience the philosophy behind the company’s grand vision or HR systems. The company they actually encounter is their direct manager. If the manager is fair, the company feels fair. If the manager is unstable, the whole company feels unstable.

That is why a bad manager quietly eats away at a team’s energy. When instructions change frequently, standards are unclear, and feedback is delivered emotionally, team members start caring more about the manager’s reaction than the work itself. They think first about what they should avoid rather than what they should do. In this kind of environment, honest opinions decrease, and creative attempts also decline. Team members say only safe things, do only safe work, and do not reveal risky problems.

By contrast, a good manager reduces uncertainty for the team. This does not mean solving every problem on behalf of the team. It means clarifying what matters. A good manager helps team members understand which direction they should move in and leaves room for learning when mistakes happen. When performance does not improve, a good manager does not immediately blame people, but looks together at the structure and the process.

In a team with a good manager, members understand their work more clearly. They spend less energy watching the manager’s mood and ask for necessary help more quickly. When problems arise, they share them rather than hide them. Over time, this difference leads to a difference in performance. In the end, manager selection is not simply an HR procedure. It is a core design of organizational culture.

Who a company promotes into management shows what that company values. A company that promotes based only on results ultimately strengthens a culture that values only results. A company that promotes based on the ability to develop people builds a healthier performance culture over the long term.

To change manager selection, it is not enough to change only the evaluation right before promotion. What matters more is giving people a chance to experience the role before they become managers. Management is not something people can choose after merely hearing an explanation. Managing people is not a skill that can be learned through a few hours of leadership lectures. When conflict arises, whose story should be heard first? How should one speak to a team member whose performance is low? When the mood of the whole team has sunk, where should one begin? These things must be learned through real situations.

Organizations can provide small management experiences to potential managers. They can ask them to lead short-term projects. They can assign them to mentor new employees. They can conduct training based on hypothetical conflict situations. They can also let them observe a senior manager’s evaluation meetings or feedback conversations. These experiences are not only tools for testing candidates. They are also opportunities for candidates to ask themselves important questions.

Do I truly want to lead people?

Do I find meaning in helping others grow?

Am I ready not to avoid uncomfortable conversations and conflict?

Can I be satisfied not by doing things well myself, but by helping others do things well?

If people face these questions for the first time only after being promoted, it is too late. They must have enough chances to ask these questions before becoming managers. Only then can organizations reduce wrong promotions, and individuals avoid becoming trapped in roles they do not want. Management is not a role that should suddenly be assigned one day. It is a role that should be experienced, tested, and chosen slowly.

Another reason wrong management promotions keep happening lies in career structure. In many organizations, if people want higher pay, greater influence, and better titles, they ultimately have to become managers. The path for continuing to grow as an individual contributor is narrow, and even when people deepen their expertise, they eventually encounter a ceiling in promotion. As a result, people who do not want to manage others also choose management. They do so not because they want to, but because there is no other path.

This structure is harmful both to individuals and to organizations. Outstanding experts move into management and can no longer fully use their expertise. They become exhausted by management roles they did not want, and team members also fail to experience good leadership. In the end, the organization loses experts and fails to gain good managers.

Management must not be the only channel for career growth. Expert tracks and management tracks must be separated. People should be able to gain high rewards and influence without directly managing others. In fields such as technology, research, sales, planning, content, design, and data, people with deep expertise should be able to continue being respected as experts.

This issue is especially important in Korean organizations. In many companies, the phrase “became a team leader” is still accepted as proof of growth. By contrast, the phrase “not yet a team leader” can sound as if someone’s career has stalled. This is because rank and management responsibility are tied too tightly together. But not everyone needs to become a team leader. Some people excel at leading people, while others excel at digging deeply into problems. Some are strong at persuading customers, while others are strong at designing complex systems.

Good organizations do not force these different forms of excellence onto a single ladder. A manager is a professional who develops people, and an expert is a professional who deepens knowledge and skills. Neither is superior to the other. The more diverse career paths become, the more management becomes not a role people are pushed into, but a role chosen by those who are truly suited to it.

The reason manager selection is becoming more important is that the work of managers has become far more complex than before. In the past, managers mainly divided work, checked performance, and managed reporting systems. Of course, even then it was not easy. But today’s managers are asked to play far more roles.

In a hybrid work environment, they must connect team members who are physically apart. They must explain and adjust to work methods that are changing because of AI adoption. They must coordinate different expectations and working styles across generations. At the same time, they must also deal with issues such as burnout, psychological safety, diversity, fairness, and organizational engagement. More complex emotions and faster changes than before are arriving on the manager’s desk.

The problem is that although the role has grown, time and authority have not increased enough. Many middle managers still do hands-on work themselves. They must manage team members and deliver their own performance. Meetings increase, reporting becomes more complicated, and the speed of decision-making accelerates. Under these conditions, it is not easy to care carefully for team members’ growth.

It may be natural that more people do not want management roles. Organizations often give managers more responsibility without providing enough conditions that allow them to actually manage. The number of team members is large, authority is limited, and performance pressure is strong. Even a good person is bound to become exhausted in this kind of structure.

Therefore, the manager problem is not only a matter of individual ability. Organizations must also examine whether the management role is designed to be manageable, whether managers have time to care for people, and whether the organization has systems that support managers. It is not enough to push all responsibility onto managers and tell them to “show leadership.” Good managers are not created by individual effort alone. A structure in which good managers can work is also necessary.

The core of manager selection is ultimately changing the point of view. Management is not the result of promotion; it is a separate professional role. Therefore, when selecting managers, organizations must not look only at individual performance. They must also look at whether the person has the motivation to lead people, can handle conflict, finds meaning in helping others grow, and can hold the team together in uncertain situations.

These abilities are difficult to judge through a single interview or a superior’s impression. Organizations must observe manager candidates over a longer period. They need to see how candidates treat people when leading projects, how they share responsibility when pressure increases, how they receive team members’ mistakes, and how they deal with people who are slower than them or work in different ways.

A good manager is not someone who speaks well. A good manager is someone who organizes the conditions that allow team members to work better. A good manager demands performance but does not treat people as disposable. A good manager understands the organization’s goals while not ignoring the reality of team members. A good manager does not avoid conflict, but also does not turn conflict into an attack on people.

The question companies must now ask is clear. Not “Who is the most outstanding individual contributor?” but “Who is ready to lead people?” Not “Whose turn is it to be promoted?” but “Who truly wants the management role, can handle it, and is willing to learn it?” Organizations that do not ask this question will inevitably repeat the same mistake.

Managers are not merely people in the middle of an organization. They are the people who turn an organization’s promises into reality in the field. No matter how good a company’s vision and systems may sound, employees judge the company through their relationship with their manager. That is why promoting the wrong person into a manager role is not simply an HR failure. It is the clearest signal of how an organization understands people.

Management is not a medal given to people with strong performance. It is a separate profession that deals with people and organizations. Only when organizations acknowledge this fact can managers become not a trap of promotion, but a role that revives teams.

Harvard Business Review. “Stop Promoting the Wrong People into Manager Roles.” February 10, 2026.

Gartner survey cited in Harvard Business Review. May 2025 survey of 3,000 employees.

Gartner survey cited in Harvard Business Review. July 2024 survey of 3,529 employees.

Gartner survey cited in Harvard Business Review. April 2024 survey of 162 HR leaders.