The Promotion Paradox: Why Leading a Growth Team Feels So Much Harder Than Doing the Work

You were the most talented person on your team. Now you’re leading the team - and everything feels harder

You were the most talented person on your team. That’s why you got promoted.

But now you’re leading the team. And you’re realizing the decisions that felt obvious to you… aren’t obvious to everyone else.

You’ve become the go-to reviewer for every project. The one constantly pushing things forward because nothing moves fast enough. The person making every big decision because your team struggles to prioritize the right things. You know how to get things done, but now you’re stuck trying to drive results through others, while still juggling your own work as a player/coach.

The shift is disorienting.

I led growth at Wistia and Postscript. Now I coach growth leaders 1:1. And I see this exact transition trip people up all the time. Not because they’re bad leaders. But because no one gave them a system to lead well.

This post breaks down the hidden trap of becoming the "glue" for your team - and how to replace yourself as the bottleneck.

Why Most Growth Promotions Set You Up to Struggle

Most high-performing ICs get promoted to managers and team leads without being trained how to coach others.

You’re rewarded for your ability to execute: finding the right problems, solving them quickly, and holding yourself accountable. You didn’t need to be great at delegation or team alignment to deliver results.But once you’re in a leadership seat, the game changes. It’s no longer about doing the work, it’s about enabling others to do it well.

At first, staying close to every project feels like the right move.

You’ve led the charge until now, so you edit the docs, weigh-in on decisions, and join every meeting. No one teaches you how to stop doing that.

In the early days, it feels like you should still be involved in everything.

I work with Heads of Growth who care deeply, but quietly stall out because they’re still solving problems like ICs. They unintentionally become the central node in every decision, every update, every plan.

Not because they’re controlling. But because the job changed, and no one handed them a new playbook.

The Hidden Cost of Being the Glue

You don’t need to have all the answers to enable progress.

But when you’re the one everyone turns to, when every doc, meeting, or experiment needs your input, you slowly become the reason things feel stuck.

You’re not trying to micromanage. You’re filling gaps because you care. You want the work to be great. You want the team to win.

But over time, you create a dynamic where nothing moves without you. And that comes at a cost:

• You burn out from decision fatigue

• Your team loses autonomy

• Your execs start to wonder why everything feels slow

This isn’t a personal failure. It’s a system failure. And the fix isn’t more hustle.

You haven’t installed the infrastructure to scale yourself, yet.

Systems Are the Solution, Not More Hustle

Everyone says “empower your team.” But what does that actually mean?

It’s not just about trusting people more. It’s about giving them structure so they can operate without needing you in the middle.

That means:

• Defining ownership

• Clear prioritization matrix

• Creating escalation paths

• Setting a predictable cadence

Without that structure, you’ll default to more meetings, more Slack messages, more late-night feedback. But none of that scales. And it chips away at your energy and strategic focus.

What you need is a lightweight operating model.

When your team knows who owns what, how priorities get decided, and when things get discussed - they move faster. Make better decisions. Build more trust.

And you finally get space to lead.

Three Tools That Remove You as the Bottleneck

Here are 3 tools I use with my coaching clients to help them scale their team and reduce their own load:

1. Ownership Mapping. Document who owns what across your team and your growth model. A simple table or Miro board works great. This one move creates clarity and accountability, and removes the need for you to constantly referee decisions.

2. Team Operating Rhythm. Create a repeatable weekly meeting rhythm:

• Weekly planning

• Daily stand-ups

• Results check-in

• Individual 1:1’s

Replace ad-hoc syncs with structured, recurring time blocks. And say no to anything where someone else has clear ownership and accountability unless you’re specifically flagged as an inputter. It may sound basic, but it frees up mental space and builds momentum through repetition.

3. Decision Tracker. Keep a running doc of key cross-functional decisions:

• What was decided

• Who made it

• And why

It prevents rehashing the same convos, speeds up onboarding, and makes your team feel aligned and informed.

Each of these tools is intentionally simple. You don’t need a massive Notion doc. Just enough structure to remove you as the glue, and give your team a map.

You can implement all of these in a week. And the impact is immediate.

This Is Your Inflection Point

If you feel like the bottleneck, it doesn’t mean you’re failing.

It means, it’s time to level-up and build some new skills. The shift isn’t about doing more, it’s about operating differently- and with intention.

When you stop being the glue and start being the architect, your team thrives. And so do you.

If you want help making that shift, I put together a free 5-day email series called the Growth Leadership Toolkit.

It’s designed for new growth leads who want to scale themselves, lead without losing sleep, and become the kind of operator their exec team counts on.