The Promotion Felt Great. Then the Doubt Started.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spoken with dozens of tech industry managers who had just taken on new teams.

The beginning of their story is almost always the same.

They were excited. Proud. Energized. Someone trusted them with more responsibility. A bigger team. A bigger scope. A bigger opportunity to lead. They wanted to do well, and they believed they could.

Then, somewhere between week two and month three, the feeling shifted.

Meetings multiplied. Decisions stacked up. Ambiguity crept in. People depended on them in ways they hadn’t experienced before. They weren’t failing, exactly, but they didn’t feel like they were thriving either. They felt slightly behind all the time, like they were running a step slower than the role required.

And that’s when the self-talk often started.

Maybe I’m not ready for this.

Maybe I should already know how to do this.

Maybe they overestimated me.

What’s interesting is that this moment isn’t a sign of failure. It’s a predictable stage in the growth curve of leadership.

There’s a well-known model developed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that helps explain why.

He described the relationship between challenge and skill. When our skill level matches the challenge in front of us, we tend to enter what he called a flow state: focused, energized, effective. When the challenge is too low, we get bored. When the challenge is far above our current skill level, we experience anxiety and overload.

Most people stepping into a larger leadership role land squarely in that last zone.

Not because they’re unqualified. Not because they’re failing. But because growth almost always requires us to operate beyond our current capacity for a while.

That stretch is part of the process. In fact, it’s necessary. You don’t learn to lead a bigger team by staying inside the boundaries of what you already know how to do.

The real risk isn’t the stretch itself. The real risk is what happens if the gap between challenge and capability stays open for too long.

When someone remains in a role that consistently demands more than their current skill set can support, the nervous system interprets that as sustained threat. Energy drains. Confidence erodes. Decision-making slows. What began as a growth opportunity starts to feel like a burden.

Over time, we give that experience a familiar name: burnout.

Burnout, in this sense, isn’t proof that someone wasn’t cut out for the role. It’s often the natural result of staying outside the flow channel longer than the human system is built to sustain.

When the challenge is above your current skill level, one of two things has to happen. Either the role becomes easier, or your capabilities rise to meet it. In most tech leadership roles, the first option isn’t realistic. The work rarely gets simpler. Expectations rarely shrink. The only durable path forward is growth.

If you’re in this phase right now, it doesn’t mean you’re failing. It doesn’t mean you weren’t ready for the role. It means you’re in the part of the curve where growth happens fastest.

The goal isn’t to eliminate the stretch overnight. The goal is to make sure you don’t stay there indefinitely. The leaders who thrive in bigger roles aren’t the ones who never feel overwhelmed. They’re the ones who recognize what’s happening early and actively work to close the gap between what the role demands and what they can currently deliver.

You’re not supposed to feel fully ready when you step into a bigger leadership role. You’re supposed to grow into it. The mistake isn’t feeling stretched. The mistake is assuming you’re supposed to stay that way indefinitely.

Best, 

Jeff

P.S. If this resonates, I put together a short 5-day email course on the most common leadership mistakes managers make when they take on new teams. You can check it out here.