I recently promoted one of my top performers to a management role. She’d been crushing it as an IC, consistently delivering ahead of deadlines and mentoring newer team members. But now that she’s leading, she’s overwhelmed, second-guessing decisions, and missing key details. I’ve been waking up at 3am wondering if I set her up to fail. Did I promote too quickly based on past performance? Or is this just a normal adjustment period that I need to coach her through? How do you know the difference between a bad fit and early-stage growing pains?

How recent is “recently”? If she was truly one of your top performers, I think the first approach should always be to coach them through. Like any new job, if you’re thrown in without onboarding, the chance to side saddle, or shadow someone, you haven’t been set up for success.

I’d say trust your instincts—you saw something in her that made you confident she’d thrive as a leader. So invest the time and mentoring to truly set her up with the tools and insight she needs to prove you right. Have a “come to Jesus” talk with her, but have it be collaborative where you can talk openly about how you can tell she’s struggling and you really want to help her success—what does she have questions about? What are the hurdles she’s encountering that she isn’t sure how to address? What is sucking up her time, and what are some tips or guidance you can share so she knows what to spend less time on, what she can delegate, and what things are really critical to be devoting her attention and time. Let her have you as a resource and an open book for a few weeks and see how she does. If she’s not improving or implementing the guidance you shared, then you can move forward confidently, knowing that you gave her a fair shot and it’s truly not a good fit.

Not everyone is meant to be a manager, some people thrive as ICs and flail when you pull them out of their zone of genius. You might’ve been trying to reward her, but leadership is a whole different skill set. If she’s drowning, you may need to reverse course fast before it tanks team morale.

You said recently.
It's completely okay to be lost in any new role or any new responsibility.

Let her know your feedback is coming from the right place and provide timely feedback on where she's going wrong. Give her a few months before reversing your decision.

Just because somebody does a great job at an individual contributor role doesn’t mean they want to be a leader or they’ll be a good leader. There is an adjustment. To leadership absolutely. The best thing that you can do for her is sit down with her figure out where she’s struggling and figure out an action plan to help her. Remember this should’ve been done technically before you promoted her, but we’re not in that space any longer.
This could look badly on you if you don’t help her. So figure out what she wants to do where she sees herself in five years, what she’s struggling with and get an action plan together to get those things fixed so she can actually concentrate on leading.

Be her mentor and make sure that she has the capacity to manage, i.e. that she had people to hand over her work to.

My recommend for future - prior to promoting someone to a new level that requires a completely different skill set, I would have them work in that manner for ~6 months giving small management / leadership tasks, getting their feet wet allowing them to get comfortable and seeing if 1 this is what they truly want (some people prefer staying as individual contributors and thrive at just that) and 2 having the opportunity to coach / mentor that person to set them up for success IF this is what they want and if this is where they want their career path to take them

For now, take the time to coach / mentor them. Be transparent, honest and give them the tools they need to become a better leader. Share podcasts, TikTok channels, training etc.

I’d give them 3 months to show a change, leadership doesn’t come naturally to some!

See this happen. Currently report to a SMR who’s a good IC but not have good leadership skills. Leads a team but no stand-up calls to know what everyone is doing, doesn’t mentor analysts/senior analysts, and not good at delegating tasks. I’m at M but much better at leading.

Hired project managers to do the planning/scheduling. Acts more like a SME than a lead.

Why are these people getting promoted over people much deserving?

You have her too much work. Don’t doubt her potential or skills question your workload and distribution of asks.

Give some adjustment time..set clear expectations and fix some timelines on achieving them and reassess! Before doubting your own decisions.