Have you experienced a ‘bad manager’?
We were interested to read an article in the UK Guardian newspaper last week, titled: “Bad management has prompted one in three UK workers to quit, survey finds”.
The article pointed to research carried out by the Chartered Management Institute and provided commentary on poor management practices in the UK, primarily attributing this to a lack of training. “Study shows widespread concern over quality of managers, with 82% of bosses deemed ‘accidental’, having had no formal training”.
This is one of our favourite subjects…. We’ve written about ‘the frozen middle’ before – if you need a reminder you can re-visit our articles here and here.
Many of our clients recognise the importance of providing development support for their managers, in the form of group ‘training’, individual coaching, or a combination of both. They tell us, “They are so utterly vital to the performance of the organisation and the achievement of the organisation’s objectives, that it feels ludicrous not to invest in their development”.
In many cases, individuals have been promoted into a people management role because they are brilliant at what they do. We can understand the logic – consider this scenario…
Catherine is brilliant at what she does, so we will promote her so that she can lead the team, and then they will all learn from her and will all be brilliant, like her….. The reality is, sadly, not quite so straight forward, and poor Catherine soon finds that not only does she not have time to be brilliant at what she does, but she’s not sure how to communicate and share her skills with others either. Her morale drops, her team’s morale drops, overall performance plummets and everyone starts to question what went wrong.
We urge you not to ‘freeze your middle’ – please consider providing your managers and budding leaders with tried and tested performance development, and watch what happens when the technically brilliant help others to do the same.
Read the full Guardian article here: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/15/bad-management-has-prompted-one-in-three-uk-workers-to-quit-survey-finds
