The 12 Challenges Every Emerging Leader Faces (And How to Overcome Them)
You got promoted. Now what? The transition from individual contributor to people leader is one of the hardest career shifts you'll make, and 60% of new managers fail within the first 24 months. This article covers the 12 challenges that research and 8,000+ leader reflections consistently reveal.
You got promoted. Now what? The transition from individual contributor to people leader is one of the hardest career shifts you'll make, and 60% of new managers fail within the first 24 months. This article covers the 12 challenges that research and 8,000+ leader reflections consistently reveal, and what you can do about each one.
Why the Transition Is So Hard
The shift from individual contributor to people leader is a change in identity, not just responsibility.
As an individual contributor, your value came from what you produced. Your technical skills got you promoted. Your expertise was your currency. You knew what "good" looked like because you could do it yourself.
As a leader, the rules change completely.
Source: CCL citing Gartner research
This failure rate exists because the transition requires a fundamental rewiring of how you see yourself, how you add value, and how you spend your time. Intelligence and motivation are rarely the problem.
These challenges are predictable patterns that appear across industries, company sizes, and cultures. Understanding them won't make the transition easy, but it will help you recognise that what you're experiencing is normal.
The 12 Challenges
1. The Identity Crisis
The challenge: Moving from "I do the work" to "I enable others to do the work."
As an individual contributor, your identity was built on your technical competence. You were the person who could solve the hard problems, deliver the quality work, hit the deadlines. You got promoted for those reasons.
Now, your job is to make other people successful. Your output is invisible. It shows up in their results, not yours. That shift can feel like losing a part of yourself.
I felt like I could have done the work in less than half the time if I had no distractions.
— Emerging leader reflecting on delegation
This feeling is universal. The instinct to "just do it yourself" is strong, especially when you can see exactly how it should be done. But giving in to that instinct is where leadership starts to fail.
What the research says
The Center for Creative Leadership identifies six identity shifts that emerging leaders must make:
| From | To |
|---|---|
| Specialist | Generalist |
| Doer | Manager of doers |
| Tactician | Strategist |
| Problem solver | Agenda setter |
| Solo performer | Network builder |
| Warrior | Diplomat |
Each shift requires letting go of what made you successful before. This is a daily practice, not a one-time decision.
What works
Redefine what "productive" means. Your job now is to multiply, not to produce. Every time you develop a team member's capability, you're doing your job. Every time you do the work yourself, you're avoiding it.
Ask yourself at the end of each day: "Did I make my team more capable today, or did I just do their work for them?"
2. Leading Former Peers
The challenge: Managing people who were your equals yesterday.
One day you're grabbing coffee together and venting about the boss. The next day, you are the boss. The friendship doesn't disappear, but the dynamic shifts. Navigating that shift is one of the most uncomfortable challenges new leaders face.
Becoming over friendly with the other staff. Keep the divide between work/friend relationship.
— Leader reflecting on behaviours to change
Some former peers will be supportive. Others will be resentful. Some will test your authority. You'll feel the pull to be "the same person you always were" even though the relationship has fundamentally changed.
Where leaders get stuck
The two most common mistakes:
- Being too friendly. Avoiding difficult conversations, not holding people accountable, trying to stay "one of the gang." This erodes respect and makes leadership impossible.
- Being too distant. Overcompensating by becoming formal, cold, or authoritarian. This destroys trust and creates resentment.
Neither extreme works. Acknowledging the change openly and setting new expectations clearly does.
What works
Have the awkward conversation early. Acknowledge that the relationship has changed. Be clear about what you expect, and what they can expect from you. Most people will respect directness more than they'll respect pretending nothing has changed.
"I know this is weird. It's weird for me too. Here's what I'm going to try to do as your manager, and here's what I need from you."
3. Letting Go of the Work
The challenge: Delegating when you know you'd do it better.
You can see the mistakes before they make them. You know exactly how it should be done. It would genuinely be faster to do it yourself.
So why delegate?
Because your job is now to build a team that can do the work. That means letting them struggle, make mistakes, and learn.
I can create a list of client queries for the job that I have already experienced. I can forward it to the person so that just by reading it she can access the problems and their solutions.
— Leader preparing to delegate
This leader is setting the person up for success, not just handing off a task and hoping for the best.
Where leaders get stuck
Delegation requires more than handover. Effective delegation includes:
- Clear expectations about the outcome
- Appropriate authority to get it done
- Support and check-ins along the way
- Feedback at the end
The goal is to do different work: the work of developing others.
What works
Start with low-stakes tasks. Give clear instructions on the outcome, but let them figure out the process. Check in regularly without micromanaging. When they make mistakes, treat them as learning opportunities, not reasons to take the work back.
4. Having Difficult Conversations
The challenge: Saying the things that need to be said, even when it's uncomfortable.
Most people avoid conflict. Most leaders have to walk toward it.
Giving feedback about performance problems. Addressing behaviour that's affecting the team. Saying no to requests. Delivering bad news. These conversations are uncomfortable, and the instinct to avoid them is strong.
I didn't stick to the script. I let myself drop the important point I wanted to make because I knew they didn't want to hear it. I chickened out to please the other person. I did not get what I needed from the conversation. I will now need to address the issue again when it pops up.
— Emerging leader reflecting on a difficult conversation
This is one of the most honest reflections we've collected. The leader knows exactly what went wrong, and what it will cost them.
Where leaders get stuck
Avoiding difficult conversations doesn't make problems go away. It makes them worse. The underperformer doesn't improve. The toxic behaviour spreads. The team loses respect for the leader who won't address obvious issues.
Source: Center for Creative Leadership
Conflict is inevitable. The question is whether you address it early, when it's small, or late, when it's become a crisis.
What works
Prepare. Write down what you want to say. Anticipate how they might respond. Practice if you need to.
Focus on behaviour, not personality. Describe what you observed, the impact it had, and what needs to change. Give them space to respond.
Don't delay. The longer you wait, the harder it gets, and the more damage accumulates.
Read: How to have difficult conversations →
5. Giving Feedback That Lands
The challenge: Delivering feedback that actually changes behaviour.
Feedback is essential to development. But most feedback doesn't work. It either triggers defensiveness, gets dismissed, or is so vague that the person doesn't know what to do with it.
Easy to give positive feedback, improving on providing constructive criticism.
— Leader reflecting on their feedback skills
This pattern is common. Praise feels good to give. Criticism feels risky. So leaders default to positive feedback and avoid the corrective feedback that would actually help people grow.
What the research says
Feedback triggers threat responses. David Rock's SCARF model identifies five domains that activate defensiveness:
- Status. "You're telling me I did something wrong"
- Certainty. "I don't know what this means for me"
- Autonomy. "You're trying to control me"
- Relatedness. "You're not on my side"
- Fairness. "This isn't fair"
Most feedback, however well-intentioned, threatens at least one of these. Delivery matters as much as content.
What works
Build "connection credits" before you need to give corrective feedback. Notice what people do well. Acknowledge their efforts. Build the relationship so that when you do need to give difficult feedback, there's trust to draw on.
Use a structure like FECA:
- Frame. Explain why you're giving feedback, in a way that reduces threat
- Evidence. Share specific, observable behaviours (not judgements)
- Consequences. Explain the impact of the behaviour
- Action. Clarify what should happen next
Read: How to give better feedback →
6. Managing Up
The challenge: Navigating the relationship with your own manager.
You're not just responsible for your team anymore. You're also responsible for managing the relationship with your boss: aligning expectations, communicating progress, asking for support, and advocating for your team.
Many new leaders neglect this relationship. They focus all their energy downward and forget that their success depends on their manager's support.
Where leaders get stuck
Common mistakes include:
- Not asking for help. Trying to figure everything out alone, rather than leveraging your manager's experience
- Not managing expectations. Promising too much, then underdelivering
- Not communicating proactively. Letting your manager be surprised by problems
- Not advocating for your team. Failing to get them the resources and support they need
What works
Treat your manager as a stakeholder who needs to be managed. Understand what they care about. Communicate in their preferred style. Give them visibility into what's happening, especially the problems.
Ask for feedback regularly. Ask what you should be doing differently. Ask what success looks like from their perspective.
7. Time Management
The challenge: Your calendar is no longer your own.
As an individual contributor, you had blocks of time to focus on your work. As a leader, your calendar fills with meetings, interruptions, and competing demands. The deep work that used to define your days becomes impossible to find.
Phones, email received confirmations, interruptions from other office staff for non-work related issues.
— Leader listing their distractions
In an open-plan office, people are interrupted once every 3 minutes on average. It takes 8-20 minutes to recover focus after each interruption.
Source: Harvard research on mind-wandering
Where leaders get stuck
Many new leaders respond to the calendar crush by working longer hours. They come in early, stay late, work weekends, trying to create the focus time they used to have.
This is unsustainable. And it models unhealthy behaviour for the team.
What works
Accept that your time will be fragmented. Plan for it. Block focus time on your calendar and protect it fiercely. Batch similar tasks together. Learn to say no to meetings that don't need you.
Most importantly, prioritise ruthlessly. Not everything is equally important. Your job is to figure out what matters most, and spend your time there.
Stop using mobile in bed. Read instead of device.
— Leader committing to better habits
8. Imposter Syndrome
The challenge: "I don't deserve this" / "They'll find out I'm faking it."
You got promoted. But did you really earn it? Are you actually qualified to lead these people? What if everyone figures out that you don't know what you're doing?
These thoughts are almost universal among new leaders. They're worse for high performers. The same drive and self-awareness that got you promoted makes you acutely aware of everything you don't know.
Source: DDI Global Leadership Forecast 2025
What the research says
Imposter syndrome signals that you're in new territory, which is exactly where growth happens.
The leaders who never doubt themselves are often the ones who should. A little self-doubt keeps you learning, keeps you humble, keeps you listening.
What works
Normalise the experience. Talk to other new leaders. You'll find they're feeling the same things.
Separate feelings from facts. You might feel like a fraud, but you were promoted for reasons. Your organisation saw something in you. Trust their judgement, even when you can't trust your own.
Focus on learning, not performing. You don't have to be perfect. You have to be growing.
9. Building Trust
The challenge: Earning credibility without doing the work yourself.
As an individual contributor, you built credibility through your work. People trusted you because they saw what you could do.
As a leader, your work is invisible. You can't point to the deliverable and say "I did that." So how do you build trust?
Source: DDI Global Leadership Forecast 2025
Trust has collapsed across organisations. Hybrid work has made it harder. You can't build relationships through screens the same way you can in person.
What the research says
Research by Zenger and Folkman identifies three elements of trust:
- Positive relationships. People trust those they feel connected to
- Good judgement and expertise. People trust those who make sound decisions
- Consistency. People trust those who do what they say they'll do
Miss any one of these and trust erodes.
What works
Be consistent. Follow through on commitments. Do what you say you'll do, every time.
Admit mistakes. Vulnerability builds trust faster than perfection. When you mess up, own it publicly.
Give credit generously. Take blame personally. This simple pattern (credit down, blame up) builds trust faster than almost anything else.
10. Emotional Regulation
The challenge: Staying calm when everything is chaotic.
Your team is watching you. When you're stressed, they're stressed. When you're calm, they're calm. Emotional contagion is real, and as a leader, your emotions are amplified.
It made me feel hot, anxious and super negative. I had sharper responses to unrelated events.
— Leader reflecting on stress
This is what unregulated stress looks like. It spills over into everything, affecting not just your wellbeing, but your relationships and your team's performance.
Where leaders get stuck
Some leaders suppress their emotions, trying to appear calm while stress builds internally. This doesn't work. The stress leaks out in other ways, and eventually explodes.
Other leaders vent freely, using their team as a sounding board for frustrations. This doesn't work either. It transfers your stress to them.
What works
Develop self-awareness. Notice when your stress response is rising: the physical sensations, the racing thoughts, the urge to react.
Practice the Mindshifting process:
- Catch. Notice the rising stress response
- Calm. Take three deep breaths to re-engage your prefrontal cortex
- Choose. Reframe the situation as a challenge, not a threat
- Connect. Share the experience with someone you trust
Read: How to achieve emotional self-control →
11. Dealing with Underperformers
The challenge: Addressing performance issues you used to ignore.
When you were a peer, you could roll your eyes at the underperformer and move on. Now, they're your responsibility. Every day you avoid addressing the problem, you're sending a message to the rest of the team: "This is acceptable."
A fellow worker felt as if they'd been targeted by management.
— Leader reflecting on a behaviour change
This is what happens when performance conversations are mishandled. The person feels attacked rather than supported, and the relationship (and the performance) gets worse.
Where leaders get stuck
Two common mistakes:
- Avoiding too long. Hoping the problem will solve itself, giving vague feedback, never having the direct conversation
- Going too hard. Making the person feel attacked, damaging the relationship, creating defensiveness
Neither works. The goal is clear, compassionate directness: addressing the problem while preserving the person's dignity.
What works
Address issues early, when they're small. Don't wait for the annual review.
Focus on specific behaviours and their impact, not personality or character. Give clear expectations for what needs to change, and clear consequences if it doesn't.
Document everything. Follow your organisation's processes. And if the person can't or won't improve, be willing to make the hard decision.
12. Loneliness
The challenge: You can't complain to your team anymore.
As a peer, you had people to vent to. You could share frustrations, celebrate wins, and process the emotional ups and downs of work together.
As a leader, that changes. You can't complain about your boss to your team. You can't share your doubts and fears the same way. There are things you know that you can't tell them.
This isolation is one of the least discussed challenges of leadership, and one of the most corrosive.
Source: DDI Global Leadership Forecast 2025
Where leaders get stuck
Some leaders try to maintain peer relationships with their team. This creates boundary problems and can undermine their authority.
Others withdraw entirely, becoming isolated and disconnected. This leads to burnout and poor decision-making.
What works
Build a network outside your team. Find other new leaders facing the same challenges. Join peer groups, find a mentor, or work with a coach.
Take care of yourself. Leadership is depleting. You need recovery: sleep, exercise, relationships, hobbies. The leaders who neglect their wellbeing eventually burn out.
Reliable, considerate, thoughtful, strong.
— Leader describing the qualities they value in their support network
The Good News
If you recognise yourself in these challenges, you're normal.
These challenges are universal. Every new leader faces them. The ones who succeed work through them with support, practice, and persistence. They don't avoid the struggles.
Source: DDI Global Leadership Forecast 2025
Development works. Leaders who receive sustained support (coaching, peer learning, practice, feedback) improve dramatically. The 60% failure rate comes from leaving new leaders to figure it out alone.
How Leda Helps
Leda's Emerging Leaders Program was designed around these 12 challenges. Our 13 Journeys (from Team Building Basics to Managing Conflict to Emotional Self-Control) address the real struggles that surface in the first years of leadership.
The program combines:
- Daily practice. Around 10 minutes per day, building capability through repetition
- Cohort learning. Peer support from others facing the same challenges
- Live mentoring. Monthly sessions with experienced facilitators
- Real application. Activities that connect directly to your work
Completion rates of 88-98%, compared to 3-15% for typical digital learning.
About the author
Ashley Leach is Founder of Leda. Leda's leadership development methodology was co-developed with Professor Anne Lytle (Monash Business School, Kellogg PhD) and has been recognised by AACSB's Innovations That Inspire. The platform has supported thousands of emerging leaders across Australia and New Zealand, with completion rates of 88-98% — compared to 3-15% for typical digital learning.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Research shows that 60% of new managers fail within 24 months, and the majority receive no training for the role. The challenges you're facing are universal.
Most emerging leaders report feeling more settled after 12-18 months, though the learning never really stops. The first 6 months are typically the hardest. With structured development and support, the timeline can be compressed.
Self-awareness. Everything else (difficult conversations, delegation, feedback, emotional regulation) depends on understanding your own patterns, triggers, and impact on others.
Selective vulnerability builds trust. You don't need to share every doubt, but admitting that you're learning and asking for feedback signals humility and openness. Most teams respond well to leaders who acknowledge they don't have all the answers.
Everyone does. The question is how you recover from them. Own your errors publicly, learn from them visibly, and move forward. Your team will judge you more on your recovery than on the original mistake.