How Can You Tell When Someone is in Over Their Head
By VICKY BROWN
If you’re anything like me, when you give someone a department to run, you have every confidence they’ll do a great job. After all, you wouldn’t have appointed them if you didn’t believe they were the right person for the role.
But the fact is, sometimes someone is tapped to take on a job that’s above their head. They’re simply out of their depth – maybe they don’t have the right skills, or their experience doesn’t really translate, or they simply don’t have the temperament and judgment needed to run a department and lead a team.
Listen, while sometimes you can see that before you put them in the role – sometimes you can’t. Sometimes it only shows up in the ‘doing’. So today’s question is – how can you tell someone isn’t up to their new leadership role. Well, here are a few sure fire signs that you’ve got the wrong tush in the wrong seat.
First up – and this is a big one – they make decisions without considering the big picture. You know what I mean. They’ll implement a new process without thinking about how it impacts other departments. Or they’ll make promises to clients without checking if the team has the bandwidth to deliver. These decisions might look good in the moment, but they create ripple effects that cause problems down the line. And here’s what makes it worse – they often don’t even realize there are consequences to consider. They’re so focused on solving the immediate problem in front of them that they miss the broader implications entirely.
Take scheduling, for instance. They might decide to shift all team meetings to mornings because that works best for their department. But they haven’t considered that this conflicts with another department’s client calls, or that it prevents cross-functional collaboration. Or they’ll greenlight a rush project without realizing it means pulling resources from other critical projects. Before you know it, you’ve got frustrated team members, missed deadlines, and a mess that someone else has to clean up.
What makes this particularly challenging is that these decisions often come from a good place – they’re trying to be responsive and decisive. But without that broader perspective, without understanding how all the pieces fit together, they end up creating more problems than they solve. And that’s a clear sign that they’re operating above their current capabilities.
Another red flag is when they delegate everything but don’t provide any support or guidance. Now don’t get me wrong – delegation is important. But there’s a difference between delegating and abandoning ship. When someone’s in over their head, they’ll hand off tasks and then completely wash their hands of any responsibility. And when things go wrong? They’re nowhere to be found, or worse – they blame the person they delegated to.
In fact, this kind of poor delegation is often a desperate attempt to mask their own uncertainties. They know they should be leading the project, but they don’t know how. So instead of admitting they need help or clarification, they push everything onto their team members. There’s no context provided, no clear objectives outlined, no checkpoints established. They just drop the task on someone’s desk and walk away.
And let’s be honest – this approach fails everyone. The team member who’s been handed the task doesn’t have the authority to make certain decisions, doesn’t understand the full scope of what’s needed, and most importantly, doesn’t have the benefit of their leader’s experience or perspective. Meanwhile, the leader thinks they’re doing their job because, hey, they delegated, right? But real delegation isn’t about getting things off your plate – it’s about developing your team while making sure the work gets done correctly.
When you see this pattern, you’ll also see that their direct reports are getting frustrated. Because they feel unsupported, unclear about expectations, and worried about taking actions that might be wrong. Pretty soon, they stop asking questions altogether because they know they won’t get real guidance anyway. That’s when mistakes start happening, deadlines get missed, and quality suffers.
“…But the fact is, sometimes someone is tapped to take on a job that’s above their head. They’re simply out of their depth – maybe they don’t have the right skills, or their experience doesn’t really translate, or they simply don’t have the temperament and judgment needed to run a department and lead a team.
…today’s question is – how can you tell someone isn’t up to their new leadership role. Well, here are a few sure fire signs that you’ve got the wrong tush in the wrong seat.“
Here’s another one that drives me crazy – they won’t listen to other people, especially people with more experience. You’ll see them getting defensive, interrupting, or dismissing valuable input. They’re usually trying to mask their insecurity by acting like they know everything. But here’s the thing – true leadership isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about being willing to learn and leverage the expertise around you.
And boy, does this behavior show up in so many ways. They’ll cut people off mid-sentence in meetings. They’ll respond to suggestions with “That won’t work here” without even considering the idea. They’ll dismiss concerns from seasoned team members because “things are different now.” When someone raises a potential problem, they’ll minimize it or wave it away entirely. It’s actually painful to watch, especially when you know there’s decades of experience in the room being completely ignored.
What makes this particularly problematic is how it impacts team dynamics. Pretty soon, people stop speaking up altogether. Why bother sharing insights when you know they’ll be dismissed? Why point out potential issues when you’ll just be labeled as negative? The room gets quieter, participation drops off, and suddenly you’ve got a team that’s disengaged and frustrated. All that valuable institutional knowledge, all those years of experience – just sitting there untapped because the leader is too insecure to acknowledge what they don’t know.
And here’s what really gets me – this behavior actually broadcasts their insecurity louder than any admission of uncertainty ever would. Everyone can see through it. The constant interrupting, the defensive responses, the need to be the smartest person in the room – it all screams “I’m in over my head and terrified someone will notice.” Meanwhile, if they’d just admit when they’re unsure and lean on their team’s expertise, they’d actually gain respect and build stronger relationships.
Missing deadlines is another tell-tale sign. When someone’s drowning in responsibilities they can’t handle, their time management falls apart. They struggle to prioritize what’s important versus what’s urgent. Projects start slipping through the cracks. And instead of being proactive, they’re constantly in reactive mode, putting out fires.
Watch for increased stress and anxiety too. It most often shows up in body language, tone of voice, even their physical presence in the office. Maybe they’re starting to look overwhelmed during meetings, or they’re snapping at team members over small issues. These are signs that the pressure is getting to them.
Communication breakdowns are another major sign. When someone’s in over their head, their communication becomes unclear or inconsistent. Maybe they’re giving vague instructions, or failing to keep the team updated on important changes, or they struggle to explain their decisions. And when they receive feedback? They get defensive or shut down completely.
And when I say communication breaks down, I mean it really breaks down. You start seeing emails that raise more questions than they answer. Instructions that leave out critical details. Project updates that somehow manage to say nothing while using a lot of words. The team is constantly having to circle back for clarification – if they can even get their leader’s attention in the first place.
The real problem is that this creates a ripple effect throughout the entire department. Team members start second-guessing everything because they’re not sure if they have the full picture. They hesitate to move forward on projects because the last three times they did, they found out later they were missing critical information. And forget about cross-departmental collaboration – how can other teams work effectively with your department when they can’t get clear answers or consistent information?
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What’s particularly telling is how these leaders handle questions about their communications. Ask them to clarify something, and you’ll get one of two responses: either a defensive reaction where they insist they were perfectly clear and everyone else is just not understanding, or they’ll retreat into even vaguer corporate-speak, using lots of buzzwords but saying absolutely nothing. Both reactions stem from the same place – they don’t actually have a clear grasp of what needs to be done or how to do it.
You’ll also notice that their written communication often contradicts what they say in meetings. Or they’ll tell different team members different things about the same project. Not because they’re being deliberately misleading, but because they’re scrambling to keep up and don’t have a solid enough understanding to maintain consistency. Before you know it, you’ve got different team members working from different sets of instructions, all thinking they’re doing what was asked of them.
And pay close attention to how they handle change. Someone who’s struggling can become rigid and inflexible. They’ll cling to the familiar, even when it’s just not working anymore. They’ll resist new ideas or suggestions for improvement, simply because they’re already maxed out trying to manage what’s on their plate.
Now, here’s what makes all of this so tricky – most of these behaviors can show up occasionally – with any leader, especially when they’re new to the role. We all have our moments of being overwhelmed or making mistakes. But when you see multiple signs showing up consistently over time? That’s when you need to take notice.
It’s important to be on top of the situation, because catching these signs early isn’t just about protecting your business. It’s about helping that person too. Nobody wants to feel like they’re failing, and nobody wants to stay in a role they’re not equipped to handle.
So start paying attention to these signs in your business. Are you seeing any of them? And if you are – don’t panic. Just make note of what you’re seeing, document specific examples, and start thinking about how you want to approach the situation. Because addressing it properly is crucial.
Remember, being a leader means making tough calls. And sometimes the toughest calls involve admitting we made a mistake in our hiring or promotion decisions. But that’s okay – because recognizing the problem is always the first step to solving it.
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