What Nearly Blowing My Promotion Taught Me About Leadership

Forbes

a day ago

Toyna Chin is the Global Director of Marketing at Novotech, a global biotech CRO.
A few years ago, I stepped into a new role through an internal promotion. I'd been with the company for a while, understood the people and had a strong pulse on the business. Naturally, I thought I was ready to hit the ground running.
Spoiler alert: I wasn't.
Almost immediately, I found myself creating tension. Not because I had bad ideas, but because I was too eager to act without fully understanding my new reality. I later picked up What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith, and the title alone felt like it was written for me. It helped me reflect on why my instincts (which had served me well until that point) were suddenly working against me.
Here's what I wish I had done differently and what I eventually figured out the hard way.
In my prior role, I was valued for being proactive, decisive and solution-focused. When I moved up, I leaned on those same traits—but now they were landing differently. Instead of being seen as helpful, I came off as pushy. I was unintentionally steamrolling people who had more context than I did.
I remember diving into a team meeting and immediately suggesting changes to a process I thought was outdated. What I didn't realize was that this 'outdated' process had been carefully developed to meet very real constraints I hadn't yet uncovered.
That was my first big leadership lesson: Leading from the middle is very different from leading from above. Execution and influence are not the same thing. My job was no longer to drive every solution but to enable the team to solve the right problems.
One trap I fell into was assuming that my tenure gave me all the insight I needed. I'd been involved in cross-functional projects, sat in on leadership meetings and even contributed to some strategic planning. But I didn't realize how much nuance I was missing until I started asking more questions.
Eventually, I slowed down and started meeting with key stakeholders—not to tell them my vision, but to ask for theirs. I asked questions like:
• 'What's working well that you'd want to protect?'
• 'Where do you think I can be most helpful?'
• 'What do you want me to understand before I try to change anything?'
Those conversations gave me insight that no dashboard or report ever could. I realized I had a few puzzle pieces—but not the whole picture.
I came into the role with good intentions, but my early attempts to make improvements were met with hesitation. It wasn't until I stepped back and focused on building trust that things began to shift.
I started by owning what I didn't know. I became more transparent about my learning curve and started showing more appreciation for the team's existing efforts. I stopped assuming and started listening with patience.
And something powerful happened: the resistance faded. People became more open, more engaged and, ironically, more receptive to change. They felt respected and included in the process.
There was a process I was certain we needed to sunset. In my mind, it was inefficient and outdated. But when I spoke to the team that created it, I heard the backstory. That process wasn't built in a vacuum; it was born from constraints, limited resources and a lot of trial and error.
Instead of scrapping it immediately, I invited the team to revisit it with me. We explored what still served us and what we'd outgrown. Together, we built something better. That collaboration turned what could've been seen as a teardown into a shared success.
It taught me something critical: Honoring past work isn't about clinging to the old. It's about showing people that their efforts matter—and that progress is something we create together.
I had a new title, new responsibilities and formal decision-making power. But the moment I tried to rely on that power alone, I hit walls. Influence, I realized, comes from alignment, not hierarchy.
So I brought people into the conversation early. I started socializing ideas instead of announcing them. I gave space for feedback, even when it was hard to hear. Over time, something shifted: the team stopped seeing change as my agenda and started treating it as our direction.
Looking Back: Growth Requires A Gear Shift
That promotion was a turning point for me not just professionally, but personally. It challenged my assumptions, exposed some blind spots and ultimately reshaped how I lead today.
Goldsmith's premise still rings true: The skills that get you promoted won't necessarily make you successful in your new role. Transitioning into leadership requires letting go of old habits, embracing new ones and remembering that people don't follow titles—they follow trust.
If you've recently stepped into a new role or have one on the horizon, here's my advice: don't rush to prove yourself. Start by listening, aligning and showing people that you respect the journey they've been on. Because when people trust that you see them, they'll walk with you even when the path changes.
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