Promoting Your People Before You Recruit Their Boss

Michael Timmons

Aug 26

6 min read

Before a company spends months recruiting an outside executive, manager, or department head, leadership should ask one important question:

Have we seriously evaluated the people already on our team?

Too often, companies immediately begin an external search when a leadership position opens. They hire recruiters, write job descriptions, interview candidates, negotiate compensation packages, and bring in someone who may know the industry, but knows very little about the company.

Meanwhile, a strong employee who has spent years learning the customers, products, systems, culture, and people may be sitting two offices away wondering why they were never considered.

Internal promotion should not happen automatically. The best-performing salesperson does not necessarily make the best sales manager, and the best engineer may not be ready to lead an engineering department.

But internal candidates deserve serious consideration.

Succession planning, mentoring, and leadership development should be part of every healthy organization.

Succession Planning Should Start Before You Need It

Companies should not begin succession planning when someone resigns.

By then, it is usually too late.

Leaders should constantly be identifying employees with the ability, personality, judgment, work ethic, and desire to take on more responsibility.

That means asking questions such as:

Who could lead this department tomorrow?
Who understands the business beyond their current job description?
Who naturally helps other employees succeed?
Who takes ownership when something goes wrong?
Who can make decisions without constantly needing approval?
Who understands our customers and our culture?
Who has earned the respect of the team?

Once those people are identified, leadership development should begin.

Give them exposure to meetings they normally would not attend. Let them participate in budgeting, forecasting, strategic planning, hiring, customer discussions, and cross-functional projects.

Give them responsibility before giving them the title.

That is how you discover whether someone is truly ready to lead.

Mentoring Builds Future Leaders

One of the most valuable things senior leaders can do is mentor the next generation of leaders inside the company.

Mentoring does not require a complicated corporate program.

Sometimes it is simply bringing a promising employee into conversations they normally would not hear.

Explain why decisions are made.

Show them how a P&L works.

Teach them how pricing decisions affect gross margin.

Most importantly, let them make some decisions themselves.

People cannot learn leadership if leadership never gives them the opportunity to lead.

Mistakes will happen. That is part of development.

A good mentor does not prevent every mistake. A good mentor helps someone understand what happened, learn from it, and make a better decision next time.

Internal Promotion Builds Loyalty

Employees pay attention to who gets promoted.

When people see coworkers grow into larger roles, it sends a powerful message: There is a future for me here. That matters.

People are far more likely to invest in an organization when they believe the organization is willing to invest in them.

Promoting from within also tells employees that performance, commitment, growth, and leadership potential are recognized.

The opposite can also be true.

Imagine working somewhere for seven years, learning the business, helping train new employees, developing customer relationships, solving problems, and taking on responsibilities outside your job description.

Then a leadership position opens.

Instead of having a meaningful conversation with you, the company immediately surprises everyone by hiring someone from outside.

That employee may reasonably begin asking:

Why should I continue giving more than my job requires?

Is there actually a career path for me here?

Does leadership value the knowledge I have accumulated?

Those questions can quickly become retention problems.

Institutional Knowledge Has Tremendous Value

Internal candidates often possess something that cannot be learned during onboarding: Institutional knowledge.

They know why certain systems exist.

They know which customers require special attention.

They know what happened during previous product launches.

They know which initiatives worked and which ones failed.

They know the personalities inside the organization.

They understand the informal communication networks that exist in every company.

An outside leader may bring valuable new ideas and experiences, but it can take months or sometimes years to develop that same understanding.

That does not mean companies should never hire externally.

Outside leaders can bring fresh thinking, new skills, stronger processes, and different perspectives.

But companies should understand what they are potentially giving up when they overlook qualified internal people.

The Other Side of Internal Competition

There is another issue companies must prepare for when filling leadership roles.

What happens when someone inside the organization believes they should have gotten the position, but did not?

This can become one of the most difficult situations a new leader faces.

Most professionals will be disappointed, process the decision, and continue doing their jobs.

Unfortunately, some will not. Resentment can turn into hostility.

Instead of helping the new leader succeed, an employee may begin working against them.

Sometimes it is obvious. Sometimes it is extremely subtle. They may withhold information.

They may intentionally leave the new leader out of important conversations.

They may tell coworkers, customers, or executives that the new person “doesn't understand the business.”

They may challenge decisions publicly. They may exaggerate mistakes.

They may selectively share information to make the new leader look unprepared.

In more serious situations, people may even distort conversations or make dishonest claims in an effort to damage someone's credibility.

The objective becomes simple: Make the new leader uncomfortable enough that they leave.

I have seen versions of this happen in organizations more than once.

It is incredibly destructive.

Leadership Cannot Ignore Sabotage

When this behavior begins, senior leadership must address it quickly.

Ignoring it rarely makes the situation better.

Leaders sometimes assume: “They'll work it out.”

Sometimes they will. Sometimes they will not.

If someone is actively undermining another employee, especially a newly hired leader, the organization has a responsibility to investigate what is happening.

There is an important difference between healthy disagreement and sabotage.

Healthy disagreement sounds like: “I disagree with this strategy, and here is why.”

Sabotage looks like intentionally withholding information, spreading false narratives, manipulating conversations, creating divisions, or attempting to damage another person's reputation.

Strong organizations allow disagreement.

They do not tolerate dishonesty.

Communicate With Internal Candidates

Many problems can be reduced with better communication during the hiring process.

If an internal employee applies for a leadership position and is not selected, do not simply send them an automated rejection email.

Have the conversation.

Explain why another candidate was selected.

Explain where the internal candidate is strong.

Explain what skills or experiences they still need to develop.

Then create a development plan if they truly have leadership potential.

That conversation may be uncomfortable.

Have it anyway.

Silence creates assumptions.

Assumptions create resentment.

Honest communication creates clarity.

An employee may still disagree with the decision, but at least they understand how the decision was made and what they need to do if they want another opportunity in the future.

External Hiring Still Has a Place

There are absolutely situations where hiring from outside is the right decision.

Maybe the organization needs capabilities that simply do not exist internally.

Maybe the company is entering a new market.

Maybe the department needs significant transformation.

Maybe the current team has technical expertise but nobody is ready to lead.

Maybe the organization needs someone who has already scaled a business through the next stage of growth.

External leaders can bring tremendous value.

The mistake is not hiring externally.

The mistake is failing to evaluate the people you already have first.

Build Leaders Before You Need Them

The best organizations do not start looking for leaders after someone resigns.