I’ve been with BSI for almost fifteen years. In that time, I’ve worn a lot of hats, navigated a lot of change, and learned more than I ever expected about what it actually takes to build a workplace where people can do their best work. Some of those lessons came from doing things well. A lot of them came from getting things wrong and paying attention.
This blog is about one of the patterns I’ve watched play out repeatedly over the years, and the work we’re doing right now to address it the right way.
The Promotion That Changes Everything
It usually starts as a good moment. Someone on the team has been exceptional. They’re trusted, they deliver, and they’ve earned a shot at the next level. So we promote them. We celebrate them. We hand them a new title and a team of direct reports.
And then we mostly leave them to figure it out.
This is a pattern I’ve seen throughout my career, and if I’m honest, it’s one I’ve been part of as well. The intention was never to set anyone up to struggle. The assumption was that what made someone a great individual contributor would carry over into leadership. Those good instincts would translate. That leadership was somehow something you either had or gradually picked up.
Sometimes that happens. More often, it leaves new managers navigating one of the most important transitions in their careers without the support they actually need.
What I’ve learned, slowly and sometimes painfully, is that assumption does real harm. Not dramatic harm, necessarily. But quiet harm, the kind that shows up in teams that feel directionless, in managers who are working twice as hard as they should be because they never learned how to delegate, in employees who start looking elsewhere because they don’t feel seen by their leader.
Leading people is a completely different skill from being great at your own work. And we do new leaders a disservice when we pretend otherwise.
Where We Are Right Now
At BSI, we currently have a group of leaders with direct reports. Many of them are stepping into this role for the first time. They are talented, motivated, and genuinely care about the people they’re leading. And like most new managers I’ve ever known, they are also figuring out a lot on the fly.
One of the things I’ve noticed over and over again is that the hardest part isn’t usually the work itself. It’s the human part. Knowing how to have a hard conversation without it going sideways. Knowing how to support someone who’s struggling without crossing into territory that doesn’t belong to you. Knowing how to hold high expectations and still make someone feel valued. That balance is genuinely difficult, and most people were never taught how to strike it.
So earlier this year, I made it a priority to build something more intentional: a leadership development roadmap specifically designed for the people we’ve asked to lead teams at BSI. Not a one-time training. Not a binder of resources. An actual, ongoing investment in helping them grow.
I’m still in the middle of it, which is exactly why I wanted to write about it now, rather than when everything is polished and figured out.
The Thing I Keep Coming Back To
If I had to name the single biggest lesson I’ve carried from fifteen years of people work, it would be this: empathy is not something people either have or don’t have. It’s a skill. And like any skill, it can be taught, practiced, strengthened, and yes, held to a standard.
That sounds simple. It’s actually kind of essential, because the way most organizations behave, empathy is treated like a fixed trait. We screen for it in interviews. We notice when someone seems to lack it. But we rarely build it deliberately. We hire for it and then hope it stays.
What I’ve come to believe, and what’s shaping the roadmap we’re building, is that empathetic leadership is something we can actually develop in people. Not by lecturing them about feelings, but by giving them language, structure, and real practice. By putting them in scenarios before they’re in the moment. By making it okay to ask “how do I handle this” before they’ve already fumbled through it.
The managers I’ve seen struggle weren’t deficient in intent. They were deficient in tools, largely because no one had provided them.
What We’re Actually Building
The roadmap we’re developing rests on three things I’ve come to believe are non-negotiable for new leaders.
Clarity, even when it’s uncomfortable.
New leaders often avoid hard conversations because they’re afraid of getting it wrong. So they leave things vague, hoping the situation will resolve itself. It rarely does. One of the most important things we can teach a new manager is that clarity is an act of care, that being honest about expectations, about what’s working and what isn’t, is one of the most respectful things you can do for someone. Ambiguity isn’t kindness. It’s just delayed discomfort.
Skills, not just instincts.
Good intentions don’t give someone the words for a performance conversation. They don’t tell a new leader how to support an employee who’s going through something hard without overstepping. They don’t explain how to rebuild trust after a misstep, or how to give feedback that lands well instead of landing badly.
These are learnable skills. We’re building them into our development curriculum, not as a checklist to complete, but as ongoing practice. I want our leaders to walk into hard moments with something more than good intentions. I want them to have actually practiced.
A culture that makes all of this possible.
This is the one that’s hardest to build and easiest to underestimate. You can develop individual leaders all day long, but if the organizational culture around them sends contradictory messages, if we say we care about wellbeing but reward burnout, if we promote people into leadership and then never invest in them, the development won’t stick. The culture has to carry the expectation.
That’s on me, and it’s on every leader at BSI. Culture travels down, and it starts at the top. The work we are asking our managers to do, to be intentional leaders, to invest in their teams, to communicate openly, and to continue growing as leaders, is work that myself and the entire executive team need to be doing as well.
Why This Matters Beyond the “People” Work
I’ve sat in enough leadership meetings to know that “leadership development” can sound like a nice-to-have. Something we’ll get to when things slow down. However, what I know after fifteen years: the cost of not doing this is real, it’s measurable, and it shows up in your numbers before it shows up anywhere else.
Investing in our leaders at BSI isn’t separate from our business goals. It is part of our business goals. Teams that are led well serve clients better. Leaders who know how to develop people build the next generation of talent. And a culture where empathy is a standard, not a perk, is one people actually want to stay in.
What I’m Still Learning
I want to be honest about something: I don’t have this all figured out. None of us do. The roadmap we’ve built is thoughtful, but it’s also being tested in real time, with real people, in the middle of a real organization that has real pressures. Things will not all go as planned.
In the posts that follow this one, I’ll share what’s actually happening, what’s landing, what we’re adjusting, and where we’ve been surprised. Because I think there’s something more useful in that kind of honesty than in a framework that looks clean on paper.
Almost fifteen years in, I’m still learning what it means to lead people well. I think that’s the point. The leaders who stop learning are usually the ones whose teams feel it first.
A question worth sitting with:
How are you preparing your new people leaders, not just to hit their numbers, but to actually lead the people in front of them? And if you’re honest about it, are you promoting managers faster than you’re preparing them?
I’d genuinely love to hear how others are navigating. Drop a comment or reach out directly. This conversation is better when more people are in it.