Not all promotions are opportunities. Some are traps.

In my career as a manager, I’ve had many successes and witnessed several achievements from my employees. However, it’s impossible for everything to be perfect, and that was also the case in my own journey. Like everyone, I encountered obstacles and learned many lessons along the way. The first is that not all promotions are opportunities. Some are traps.

In the next articles on my blog, I’ll share the series of mistakes I made that eventually led to me losing my job as a Warehouse Manager in 2019.

To make it easier to follow, I’ll go in chronological order.

Not the right position for me

My first management mistake wasn’t related to poor execution. It started the day I accepted a position for which I was not ready.

I believed that willpower would be enough where experience, support, and a clear understanding of expectations were lacking.

It was like finding myself in a lions’ den armed with… a spoon.

• I had three years of management experience: 2 years managing two employees and two systems (a wastewater treatment plant and destruction), and one year as a production supervisor on a night shift team (70–100 employees).

• I was taking a senior manager role in a department I knew nothing about.

• I had no experience managing a warehouse.

• I was moving from a team composed mainly of women to one almost entirely made up of men.

• I had to manage two warehouses at two different locations.

• I was responsible for about sixty employees across 6 shifts (a plant running 24/7).

• I had two coordinators and one supervisor to help me manage this large department.

• A friend, who had senior management experience, had told me I didn’t have the necessary experience for this role.

• And maybe the most important: it was a graveyard for managers.

Looking back, that last point should have set off alarm bells in my head. But I was still a carefree early-career manager and thought I could succeed where others had failed.

I loved my role as a production supervisor, but working night shifts and often stretching my days to 15–16 hours was starting to have a negative impact on my energy level and personal life. I needed to find a way to move to a day shift.

I didn’t know the responsibilities inherent to the warehouse manager role, but after several discussions with employees from the department, I sensed a lot of frustration about the lack of listening and support from the managers in place.

So, since support was one of my biggest strengths, I told myself I could help.

That was my intention: to help.

Good intentions…

And that’s exactly what blinded me.

I saw unhappy employees who needed someone to listen to them and support them.

In just one year, I had taken the toughest production team and, according to an internal survey, helped them evolve into the most engaged and motivated team in the department.

So I thought I was equipped to do the same with this new team.

NOPE!

I had no idea what kind of mess I was about to get into.

Why I ended up in the role

I was the one who pushed my bosses to give me this opportunity when the position opened up.

• I was the one who asked for the job.

• I wrote a motivation letter explaining my vision for the department (without having done any diagnosis, just basing myself on my current perception of the department and my understanding of the dynamics).

• I accepted the job without even asking to see a job description beforehand (ironically, my boss asked me to create one a month after I started—another red flag).

For upper management, my hiring solved two problems: they wanted to keep me in the company and knew I would have to leave soon if I stayed on the night shift, and they needed someone to fill this vacancy.

Starting conditions

So, I started the role with:

• No knowledge of my job description (I think the exact words were: take time to get familiar with your new employees and new reality).

• No experience in the field.

• No support.

• An undisciplined team.

• A lack of manpower.

• A 24/7 operation to manage.

In the end, I had volunteered to lock myself in the lions’ cage, armed only with… that famous spoon.

Day 1: The wake-up call

No one will be surprised by the result of my first day: a wake-up call!
Phew… it was a tough day.

Lessons learned

This experience taught me that not all opportunities are worth taking.

Accepting a job without having the experience, the support, or a clear understanding of expectations is like walking into the lions’ den armed with a spoon.

In management, there’s no shame in stepping back, asking the right questions, and waiting for the right time to progress. Every transition must be carefully thought out, because the higher you climb, the more fragile your seat becomes.

And you—have you ever accepted a job that, looking back, wasn’t the right fit for you?

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Carl-Michael Tessier, M.Sc., MBA
Coach in high-performance team development and tailored leadership support