Article Summary
- Why lack of training —not lack of talent—is undermining your leadership effectiveness.
- How structured development builds trust, resilience, and organisational performance.
- Practical strategies to embed leadership development across the employee lifecycle.
It’s one of the most damaging myths in the modern workplace: that great managers simply emerge through experience or technical expertise. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary the assumption persists, and organisations are paying the price.
In the UK today 82% of new managers receive no formal management training before stepping into their roles.1 Across businesses and sectors the majority of people leading teams are being asked to drive performance and support wellbeing without preparation.
Meanwhile, the same research finds workers with ineffective managers are more than twice as likely to leave their organisation within a year compared to those who rate their manager as effective (50% vs 21%). The cost to engagement, productivity and retention is significant and increasingly difficult to ignore.
On the other side CIPD research finds employees with positive views of their manager are more likely to say they perform effectively, less likely to say work has a negative effect on their health and have a lower intention to quit.2
The gap in leadership preparation
Building leadership capability calls for focused support, clear expectations and structured opportunities to grow the skills needed to lead people and not just deliver tasks.
Yet in too many organisations stepping into a management role still looks like trial by fire. Promotion decisions are often based on functional expertise or tenure, not relational ability or leadership potential. The assumption that people will simply ‘pick it up’ on the job remains entrenched.
The result is predictable. Poorly prepared managers default to the models they’ve experienced. Some become micro-managers. Others avoid difficult conversations. Many struggle with ambiguity or handling emotions. The knock-on effects include rising stress, disengagement and attrition for both the managers themselves but for the teams they lead.
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Meanwhile, employees who see poorly trained managers struggling may be less inclined to volunteer for that path.
Academic research is beginning to re-centre the role of managers in business performance. For decades dominant strategy models have focused on market forces or organisational resources largely overlooking the individuals responsible for turning strategy into action. But new work by Nicolai Foss and Ambra Mazzelli argues that it is precisely through managers, and their everyday interactions across the organisation, that value is created and sustained.3
Their concept of “managerial interfaces” highlights how managers shape outcomes through conversation, coordination, influence and feedback rather than just top-down command. These are not innate abilities but dynamic capabilities that must be built through experience, reflection and training. Without deliberate development the very mechanisms that translate strategy into results are left fragile and inconsistent.
Why this matters
Management quality is a critical determinant of organisational success.
Research from the University of Southern California shows that strengthening management capability can improve team productivity by up to 35%. Replacing a poor manager with a strong one can be equivalent to adding a fifth employee to a team of four. 4
Meanwhile, analysis from McKinsey highlights that organisations with strong middle management are more likely to outperform competitors. Top quarter organisations, those with managers who perform 11 management practices more frequently than the remaining three-quarters, realise from three to 21 times greater shareholder return over five years. 5 As McKinsey says: “We found that strong middle managers aren’t just nice to have; they are a business imperative.”
Effective leadership requires development in emotional intelligence, communication, coaching and relationship-building. It demands reflection, feedback and space for managers to build confidence in leading diverse teams.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 reinforced this urgency, listing leadership and social influence among the most critical skills for the future workforce. 6
Moving towards structured, evidence-based development
Building leadership capability demands the same strategic commitment organisations apply to financial management, innovation or operational excellence. Leadership success cannot be left to informal learning or time served in a role.
Ann Francke, CEO of the CMI, expresses this clearly: “ When you have trained managers you get better organisational outcomes and better employee engagement. But this isn’t going to happen by osmosis: you’ve got to work at it.” 7
When leadership development is left to chance organisations risk cultivating inconsistency rather than capability. This undermines trust, accountability and long-term organisational health.
That’s why the We Invest in People framework positions Developing Leadership Capability as a core component of sustainable success. It recognises that good leadership doesn’t just emerge but is nurtured through deliberate design, support and continual reflection.
Organisations today should be designing leadership pathways in line with business needs, values and workforce expectations. And that means moving beyond one-off training events to create a genuine infrastructure for leadership development.
View from the Community
Culture First: Building Leadership from the Ground Up
“At Qualitrain, we believe leadership starts long before a job title changes. That’s why we’ve launched our Culture First programme—a company-wide initiative designed to equip every team member with the skills and mindset to lead.
From trainers and admin to finance and HR, everyone takes part. For our seasoned managers, it’s a powerful refresher to stay sharp and focused. For others, it’s a foundation—developing emotional intelligence, communication, resilience and more, so when leadership opportunities arise, they’re ready.
Each month brings a new theme, from building strong teams to handling difficult conversations with care. It’s not just training—it’s a cultural shift.
By embedding leadership capability across the business, we’re creating a future where great management isn’t the exception, it’s the norm. Because at Qualitrain, we don’t wait for leaders to emerge—we grow them.”
Gaynor Rogers
Director for People Development, Qualitrain
Practical actions to build stronger management capability
A structured approach to leadership development is about culture, accountability and long-term resilience as much as it is about skills. These practical steps can help organisations build leadership capacity into the fabric of their operations:
- Define leadership capability clearly: Articulate the behaviours and outcomes expected at every level, from team leads to senior managers.
- Prioritise relational skills in promotion decisions: Shift selection criteria to reflect empathy, adaptability and ethical judgement.
- Create structured learning pathways: Move from ad hoc training to long-term development journeys with touchpoints at each career stage.
- Embed coaching cultures: Make development part of everyday leadership practice through peer mentoring, reflective spaces and leadership communities.
- Use upward and 360° feedback: Ensure managers receive regular insights from those they lead and not just from above.
- Align manager development with strategy: Tie leadership growth to organisational priorities rather than treating it as a side initiative.
- Track leadership impact: Use people metrics to assess leadership effectiveness as well as performance outcomes.
Conclusion
Organisations that invest systematically in leadership development build stronger cultures, higher-performing teams and more resilient futures.
Investors in People’s experience continues to show that great management is never accidental. It emerges through structured development, reflection and sustained support.
In a changing world where employee expectations are rising, building effective leadership pipelines has become critical to organisational resilience and growth.
Future-ready organisations are those that treat leadership development not as an optional programme but as a foundation for sustainable success.
This article is inspired by the theme of The Management Crisis: Why We Must Rethink Leadership Development, which Ann Francke, CEO of the CMI, which we will explore at the upcoming Investors in People Make Work Better conference. Join us there to take the conversation further and to help build healthier, more sustainable leadership cultures across the UK.
Sources
- CMI, Better Management Report: Taking responsibility – why UK plc needs better managers https://www.managers.org.uk/knowledge-and-insights/research/better-management-report-take-responsibility-take-action/
- CIPD Good Work Index 2025 https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/reports/goodwork/#relationships-at-work
- Foss, N. J. & Mazzelli, A. (2024). Bringing managers and management back into strategy: Interfaces and dynamic managerial capabilities. Journal of Business Research, Vol 186.
- Robert D. Metcalfe, Alexandre B. Sollaci, and Chad Syverson, “Managers and Productivity in Retail,” Working paper, May 2023. https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/a-good-boss-can-boost-team-productivity
- McKinsey, Investing in middle managers pays off—literally https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/investing-in-middle-managers-pays-off-literally
- WEF, Future of Jobs Report 2023 https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2023.pdf
- Investors in People (2025). The Broken Ladder: Why People are Avoiding Manager Roles – and how to fix it
