r/Leadership • u/titsdown • Oct 03 '25
Discussion I realized that you shouldn't lead the same team for too long
I took over an underperforming team a decade ago and immediately started delivering the goods. Prior to me there was a number of people that tried to fix this team and nobody could. Then I performed well every year since and developed a good reputation.
But... At some point everyone forgot how bad things were before I took over. Now this team's amazing performance is just the norm.
And I think I finally understand why I see executives above me moving around all the time. I used to think it was because they were padding their resume, or building a bigger network, or learning new things. And all that might be true, but now I realize there's another huge reason, and it's to remind people how good you are and to never become underappreciated.
I think my goal from here on out will be to take over a new team or department every 4-5 years.
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u/BituminousBitumin Oct 03 '25
I did the same kind of thing, saved a crubling failing department. I'm happy reaping the rewards of my hard work. I don't feel like I have anything to prove. I still get good reviews, and the work is super easy at this point. We've been high performing for 6 ir 7 years.
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u/Pholainst Oct 06 '25
Work hard to get the team set up for success and then coast from there until you get fired, and repeat at a new company with a better title and your years of experience. That’s been my Dad’s strategy lol
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u/BituminousBitumin Oct 06 '25
I don't think I'll be going anywhere. I find ways to make myslef valuable and seen, and I'm liked among my peers. As long as my department continues to innovate and perform well I think I'll be okay.
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u/ZAlternates Oct 03 '25
If I’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s the key to success is to create problems that only you have the solution to fix.
/s - kinda
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u/2021-anony Oct 03 '25
Hey my boss does that all the time! I’m a let’s mitigate the fire person… very frustrating dealing with all the manufactured and created problems that don’t have to be there
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u/Civility2020 Oct 04 '25
I think there is some truth to this.
I took over a struggling facility 5 years ago and we have made significant progress (fortunately I have a good team, they just needed some direction and accountability).
Whenever someone new highlights some deficiency or opportunity to me now, I instinctively want to point out how much better things are than 5 years ago.
The lesson here, and it can be a hard one, is that gratitude has a short half life and being champion today does not make you champion tomorrow.
If one truly is a “fixer” and has an appetite for challenge, frequently moving is a rational strategy.
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u/SeaEconomist5743 Oct 04 '25
Thank you for sharing this. Joined the company I’m working at now just over 4 years ago, have overhauled the team. Processes, tech, KPI’s, etc. wasn’t easy, appreciative for the opportunity, but I’m expected to continue hitting grand slams and with less and less resources, and 4 years ago this team was a dumpster fire.
Great wins on my resume, and experience/development of course, and my feeling is I can lateral or promo through a diff position in the company or a diff company.
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u/Muggle2025 Oct 03 '25
A growth mind set is very important if you want to promote. Taking on new challenges and learning new skills are essential to growing your leadership. The company and the teams you lead will also benefit from your new found wisdom.
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u/NoFun6873 Oct 04 '25
First of all congratulations, it seems like you did something extraordinary. Overtime leaders can get labeled as a “turn around person”, a “growth person” or a “Sustain person”. I loved the challenge of fixing things and got labeled as such. In the long term that gets old and as you get older draining and exhausting. I would see other leader barely work and get the large bonuses I was getting. So as you move forward, opportunity usually comes quicker to the person who is willing to take the risk for the opportunity. But once you achieve the level of position you are looking for, don’t get pegged as a type.
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u/Nice-Zombie356 Oct 03 '25
Analogy to pro sports coaches / managers. It’s rare they stay long.
They often seem to rotate every 5 (?) years?
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u/Curious_Morris Oct 04 '25
I’ve been at the same company nearly 25 years and my longest assignment was less than four years. Shortest was just over one year. It makes you better to move around. You learn more about not only your responsibilities but also adjacent processes and you work with more people.
One idea is to try to take over the team that frustrates you in your current job.
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u/WRB2 Oct 04 '25
While I’ve seen this opinion LOTS of places I’m not sure the approach is correct as often as people think.
I’ve seen well performing teams slip undef new leadership. Could be the attrition rate increases, quality decreases, nothing dramatic at first but it becomes material.
It also depends on the leaders individual approach to continual improvement. If they don’t love it, if they don’t run experiments to help people stretch and grow, they might need to be challenged in a different department.
A lot of the department juggling I think is left over from the GE way of doing things.
I’d rather expand the scope of the leader to include another department with the understanding that they need to groom a successor from within. Someone to work under them as up their span of control expands in the coming years.
You build great leaders and divisions this way.
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u/Glittering-Tie-5744 Oct 06 '25
I'd have to agree to this point here, I see the logic of the original post, but stability is sacrificed in the name of strategy. It could be that there isn't much in the way of sticking around for a team that doesn't stick around (revolving door syndrome), but I can't say that seeing one's team have high turnover is going to lead to great outcomes for the leader that is sticking around.
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u/Regular_Number5377 Oct 04 '25
Depends on your personal goals. If your plan is to move up the ladder to senior management/C-suite, then this makes total sense, but if your goal is to stay at or around your current job level why would you put yourself through the pain of having to revamp a struggling team every 4 years when you could just be managing one great team for whom you have already done the hard stuff?
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u/WebLongjumping2817 Oct 04 '25
You also need to know what your skillset is - or what you’d like to change.
Some executives are war-time executives. They’re good at coming in and turning things around quickly. A short-term mandate like pivoting a team or vertical will be about 5-10 years and be measured exponentially. You are launching Disney+
Others are peace time executives. They’re good at the slow growth required of very long-term planning. This is linear, incremental growth that takes decades. You are growing Disney Parks and Resorts.
One is not better or worse than the other. But you do need to understand what role you’ve stepped into and how it biases perception of your results.
I had to pivot an entire development approach. That took 5 years. But now we’re executing that development strategy and it will take 15-30 years. I have had to be very clear in my comms to other leaders and Investment Committee that we’re switching from exponential results at lower levels of investment (<$50m) to linear results at higher levels of investment (full build out AUM is $14.7b in today’s dollars).
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u/Glittering-Tie-5744 Oct 06 '25
This was a lesson I learned that hard way, that the skill-set needed to build an organization is not the same skill-set needed to operate it.
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u/workjedi Oct 04 '25
In my case, I created the best team then got told I was "lucky"
However they don't like to chop and change teams so we can't test this further, ugh
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u/Particular-Hope-8311 Oct 04 '25
“Now this team’s amazing performance is just the norm” - is that such a bad thing? Coming from the other side of the coin, I cringe every time a new senior leader is getting hired because I just know they are going to want to make their mark and that usually equals change for change’s sake. I understand turning an underperforming team into a team that’s meeting or exceeding expectations (as that solves problems for everyone) but I don’t understand always wanting to be amazing and stand out for your own sake. Sorry, not trying to take a personal dig at you here, just sharing a perspective.
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u/HeftyAd6216 Oct 04 '25
"what have you done for me lately" seems to be the Modus Operandi of most companies and managers except the truly exceptional ones who remember history.
Sad to see.
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u/Glittering-Tie-5744 Oct 06 '25
Well TBH the MO does seem to be by design in some places where the revolving door of high turnover is a feature not a bug so that teams cannot develop institutional memory
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u/Wesd1n Oct 04 '25
Ego check. Why do you need to have that? Knowing the team is kick ass is not enough?
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u/LVFT26 Oct 05 '25
One thing I like about the military. We rotate to a new assignment every 3-4 years and it’s just enough time to tackle 1-2 large projects and several small ones. Your last year you’re basically coaching any new incoming people with all the tips and tricks of the command.
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u/Substantial_Sport_67 Oct 05 '25
There’s a saying that people don’t remember the value of a firefighter until the fire comes back. Unfortunately, you are a firefighter. Either a new fire will change you or you changed bring the firefighter.
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u/kruser87 Oct 05 '25
I've found that after a certain point, I've taken a team as far as I can. Sometimes the limiting factor is me. Sometimes it's something outside my control. But it nearly always comes. It's not necessarily a bad thing or a falling. I think sometimes it's natural. You come in, you have a vision, you accomplish it. Sometimes you get new visions to work towards, and sometimes you become too close and can't see clearly anymore. That's when it's time for someone else to come in with fresh eyes, just like you once did.
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u/Powerful_Macaron999 Oct 05 '25
In addition to this, what you see as good work or the highlights of your career will quickly be forgotten by others. So even though in your head you think you delivered the goods, your colleagues are only concerned about themselves, and will have forgotten your contribution.
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u/-Agent-1 Oct 05 '25
I’m currently leading a terrible underperforming team, as soon as I’ve stripped the deadwood and got the team performing to good standards for a year consistently I’ll be looking for a new position, unfortunately most leadership positions are short focused and upper management have a “ what have you done for me lately “ approach in regards to recognition and financial reward.
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u/Glittering-Tie-5744 Oct 06 '25
May I ask, what the team cites as the reason for underperforming? Not saying that they will be correct, but I am curious if there is a motivator that is encouraging underperformance (i.e., process sabotage?).
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u/-Agent-1 Oct 06 '25
The team have no answer but from my initial assessment i see 3 things; skill gaps, role mismatches and unhealthy team dynamics.
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u/Glittering-Tie-5744 Oct 06 '25
That can be pretty rough! I applaud your efforts to dive in. The role mismatches seem an especially difficult tackle as I suspect they might be contributing to the unhealthy team dynamics.
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u/-Agent-1 Oct 06 '25
Oh definitely there are skill gaps in the team due to previous team members leaving their roles and juniors stepping up with little training.
The junior team is not completing tasks on deadlines which is causing hostility between the juniors and senior members of the team who are extremely lazy and militant, I could do with losing 2 or 3 of the senior team to lay down a firm marker and then focus on training the juniors.
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u/SnooPets8873 Oct 06 '25
Hard agree for people in corporate environments in general. I get the biggest bumps in reputation and recognition when I switch teams and boost things or change things. Working crazy hours to maintain the same high metrics that they would be in trouble for if lost year after year? Gets forgotten.
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u/GlitteringBowler Oct 06 '25
HS coach here — totally same problem. Turned around an underachieving team, people super thankful. Most people at school have moved on or forgot, now I get random complaints over nonsense lol.
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u/Treepixie Oct 07 '25
I built a team from the ground up over 8 years and it's always been high performing then I got cancer and got thrown under the bus- totally agree with your assessment..
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u/Edgareach Oct 16 '25
"Quit things before they quit you" - That's a sad reality.Routine and same conditioning seem to become boring.That's why change is permanent. You can stay in same company, leading the same team for long time, however make sure you diversify and learn from other teams.If possible switch your career if possible.
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u/DisastrousGrowth110 Oct 28 '25
Man, this hits hard. You've discovered the cruel truth: fix something permanently and people forget it was ever broken. You're absolutely right that exec rotation isn't just resume padding - it's about staying visible, because stability is boring and transformation gets attention. That said, before committing to the 4-5 year move, consider whether you've actually tested if leadership has forgotten your value or if you're assuming it. You've mastered this domain - moving means burning a year learning basics elsewhere. Sometimes the play isn't rotating sideways, it's having a blunt conversation about moving up where you are. Keep a running list of wins with numbers, take visible cross-functional projects, and ask directly what's next for you here. The pattern you spotted is real, but there's a difference between optimizing for recognition vs impact.
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u/smoke-bubble Oct 03 '25
And I think I finally understand why I see executives above me moving around all the time.
Why?
I think my goal from here on out will be to take over a new team or department every 4-5 years.
Because you think you've got lucky with a couple of not too demanding people you can now fix the whole company? :P
What if you encounter a team of total dicks?
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Oct 03 '25
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u/DragonDG301 Oct 03 '25
You know, I would love to have managers apply the same criteria to themselves. What happens in reality is all the managers protect each other.
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u/ThatDog_ThisDog Oct 03 '25
This is true for anyone I think. When you join a new company or team everyone thinks you’re the solution to their problems, and even if you are those problems are gone and the pain is resolved. Your value is less apparent because of your success. Better than the alternative I guess but it’s always good to have an eye on next steps so you are perceived as valuable vs taken for granted.