Dear Liz,
I was surprised to post a job opening for a Team Leader in my group and have eleven different employees (out of 17 in the group) apply for it. I was stunned in fact. I had two people in mind for the role and now I’m not sure how to proceed. Got any ideas?
Thanks,
Michael

Dear Michael,
It is always good to have some idea of your team members’ career plans before posting a job like that, one that represents a promotion for each of the candidates. I’d regroup, and hold a group meeting (or add this topic to the agenda for your next regular team meeting) to talk about the issue. You can talk about what you need in the Team Leader role and how you plan to make your decision. Don’t identify the 11 applicants in that meeting, of course, but do use the discussion as a forum to hear about what’s working and not working in the department. There may be reasons apart from the salary bump why so many of your folks want to have a say in what’s happening.

Above all, you want to find out what each of your team-leader-hopefuls is thinking about. The high number of applications for the job took you by surprise. Is it mostly about the pay raise? Is there something else going on? In the future, you probably want to stick a bit closer to the team members so that you aren’t surprised by the large number of aspirants for a job you’re planning to post. The more communication, the better; you can make this surprise a good thing for the team by understanding what each of these folks is planning and thinking about. You don’t want to set up the new team leader for a rough ride, so use the opportunity to get an understanding of what each of your team members is thinking. You may as well schedule one-on-ones with each of them, not just the 11 folks who applied for the job – time-consuming, yes, but you’re in an information deficit mode at the moment, so you can kill several birds with one stone.

One specific tip: as you chat with each of the 11 hopefuls, ask him or her: “Let’s say you get the Team Leader job. You and I are unfortunately killed duck-hunting or in some other way. Who should get the team leader job next?” That will be helpful input as you make your team leader assignment.
Best,
Liz