Award-winning business consultant Lauren Goldstein pulls back the curtain on one of the most expensive mistakes business owners make: promoting the wrong people into leadership roles.

In this episode, Lauren breaks down the critical difference between A-players and worker bees, reveals the five risky promotion profiles that business owners keep elevating, and shares the two core elements of real leadership DNA that you can't teach or fake.

You'll learn the exact three questions to ask before promoting anyone, the simple fix to reward both ICs and future leaders, and what to do if you've already promoted someone who isn't cutting it.
This episode is packed with tangible strategies to help you recognize who actually has leadership DNA, set your entire team up for success, and stop bleeding money and talent because of mis-aligned promotions.

If you've ever wondered whether your top performer should become a manager or if you're currently dealing with a promotion that's not working out, this episode will give you a clear path forward.

Here's what's waiting in the episode:
[00:00] The $350K promotion mistake
[02:19] Why promoting from within often backfires
[04:43] A-players vs. worker bees: Understanding the critical difference
[07:09] The exit interview that revealed catastrophic leadership failures
[09:32] The 5 risky profiles to stop promoting  
[11:55] What real leadership DNA actually looks like
[14:12] The 3 questions to ask before promoting anyone
[18:06] How to fix promotion mistakes (the conversation that sucks but saves you)
[22:49] The silent killer of teams
[25:13] The fix

Mic Drop Moments: 
1. "There's a massive difference between wanting someone to be a leader and them actually having the DNA to lead effectively."
2. "The number one job of a leader is to create other leaders, not just manage people or delegate tasks, create other leaders."
3. “Just because someone knows where all the bodies are buried doesn't mean they can lead the living.”
4. “Resentment infects the team faster than pink eye at preschool."

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Meet your host. Lauren Goldstein is who 7- and 8-figure business owners call when they’re stuck in the weeds of success and need their business to truly run without them.

She is an award-winning business consultant and advisor.  As the founder of Golden Key Partnership, a boutique business consulting firm, she has spent the last decade behind the scenes of high-growth small businesses, fixing broken team dynamics, untangling operational chaos, and helping leaders reclaim their time and sanity.

Nicknamed The Biz Doctor® (how this podcast got it's name), Lauren doesn’t do surface-level advice. She diagnoses what is actually holding the business back, then builds custom strategies that create clarity, capacity, and a culture that scales.

Her work has helped some of the most respected small business owners build companies they actually enjoy running again. 

She’s been featured in Thrive Global, Huff Post, Authority Magazine and is a trusted expert to small business owners and Fortune 500 companies alike, such as Apple, Nike, and AT&T, among others.

For more from Lauren, and to learn more about her signature diagnostic framework or how she helps business owners have the freedom they started their business for, visit her website GoldenKeyPartnership.com.

You can also connect with her on Instagram or LinkedIn.

The Biz Doctor Podcast is produced by Story Studio Network.