I was brought in to build a customer experience function from scratch. The role was newly carved out with me in mind, or so I was told...
It was a big step up from individual contributor to a managerial function on the strategy team, serving the agency's highest growth clients. My manager seemed excited, so was I.
My first assignment: write your own 90-day plan. At first, it sounded exciting, but it turns out this was the red flag I ignored. Nobody reviewed it, pushed back on it, or signed off on it. I was writing my own definition of success into a vacuum and then executing against it, in a role nobody had fully defined, for a team that hadn't agreed on what I was even there to do.
Everyone kept telling me this was an opportunity. I felt the pressure, but I also felt the possibility.
I sat with every director and VP to understand their challenges. I met with our highest-revenue clients to map retention bottlenecks. I presented a plan. I launched a series. I felt like the intrapreneur they hired me to be.
What I got back from every level of the organization was this: CRITICISM. Despite no real direction and no structural support, I was expected to deliver against something nobody could define.
I worked harder towards 'success.' In a short amount of time, I even brought back a 6-figure client who had left the agency, but it wasn't enough. I kept searching for a roadmap that was never coming. And eventually, I quit.
π§ Inside This Issue
If you're new here, ππ½ welcome.
This is The Messy Middle, a newsletter about the leadership journey no one tells you about. I'm Arshiya Kherani, an executive and founder coach & speaker, and I write about the things most people skip in professional spaces: identity shifts, the hard work of building something honest in public, and what it actually takes to lead with intention when life is anything but clear.
This week: the promotion trap, the Peter Principle, and what the data says about why good people fail in new roles.
π The Peter Principle (And What It Gets Wrong)
There's a management theory that describes exactly they dynamic of my promotion, and undoubtedly what others experience as well: The Peter Principle.
βThe Peter Principleis the idea that in most organizations, people keep getting promoted until they finally hit their incompetence ceiling and fail there. When I first heard it, I thought: yes, that's it...that was me. I hit my level of incompetence.
But the more I sat with it, and now as an executive coach who supports high-performers through transitions like this, the more I realized the theory lets organizations off the hook too easily.
Most promotions don't fail because someone wasn't good enough. They fail because excellence in one role doesn't automatically translate to the next, and organizations rarely bridge that gap.
You were a great individual contributor, so you get promoted to manager. You were a great manager, so you get promoted to director. At each step, the org is saying: more of what you've been doing, just bigger.
Except it's not more of the same. It's an entirely different job. An entirely different skill set. An entirely different version of you that's required to show up. The politics shift. And the people who promoted you are outtie...their their job was to get you there, not to get you through it.
The organization celebrates the promotion, but doesn't support you through the transformation.
π The Trap Inside The Trap
60% of new managers fail within the first 24 months, largely due to lack of support and training after promotion (Wharton Executive Education). And Gallup found manager engagement dropped from 30% to 27% in a single year, with the steepest declines among younger managers and women, (Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2025).
The chaos that often follows a promotion isn't a character flaw....it's statistically predictable.
Think about the last time you stepped into a new role. What actually changed? And what stayed exactly the same?
If the answer is: mostly me, still doing what I've always done, just with more on my plate and less support, that's the trap. The promotion changed the title. But did the structure, the clarity, the investment in you actually change, too?
If you're already an executive at your organization, how does your org manage promotions? And if you're the one getting promoted, do you know how to seek effective support at your organization or through an executive coach or mentor?
ποΈ I'm Talking About This Live @ 9 AM PST Today (April 15th!)
I'm sitting down with Sophia Mikelionis, executive coach and organizational systems expert, for a 20-minute, no-fluff conversation about why this happens, what organizations can actually do to fix it structurally, and how to advocate for yourself when you're in it.
πΊ Currently Watching:Shrinking, Season 3. Funny, emotional, and Liz is getting more and more...unhinged? The perfect binge-worthy show for when you need to feel something that isn't work-work-world stress.
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