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Accidental Management...
could be costing you everything
Accidental Management...what?!
I should probably explain what the term ‘Accidental Manager” actually means before considering the resources that they might have cost you and your organisation!
To paint a picture (one that I’m fairly certain 90% of you will immediately recognise…) an ‘Accidental Manager’ is someone who gets promoted to a management position – but only because they’ve been around a long time, rather than because they were the best person for the job!
Their career has progressed over time, because that’s sort of what people do, but they don’t have any particular passion for leadership, or impact on those they lead. They don’t rock the boat, they don’t push boundaries, they don’t inspire progress, but they are…well, you know…there?
Why did they get the job?
Because they have experience – possibly even expertise – in their former role, and in the particular industry or sector they work in, and being good at whatever they did made them seem like a…sensible choice for promotion? After all; they’ve put their time in, and career progress is one of the inevitable outcomes of longevity, right?
However – being around for a long time might make someone an expert in a particular role, but being an expert doesn’t always translate well into being a leader or manager…and those who got promoted over time without really intending to be in a senior management role are often described by a phenomenon called “The Peter Principle”…
Ok...but so what?
It might seem like no big deal: after all – they’ve been working here for years, they know the lay of the land, they have all that experience…surely that makes them the ideal choice to be the new Manager?
Right?!
And maybe they didn’t set out to be promoted – they might never have intended to reach this level of seniority, but when you keep doing your job well, doing your job well keeps being rewarded! Often, people find themselves climbing that career ladder simply because that’s what you’re supposed to do – and if they’re an expert; the best at whatever it was they did before that promotion, it seems obvious that they’d be the best at this job too?
Right?!?!
Unfortunately (and all too often) no!
Promotion on those terms usually doesn’t result in a great Manager – because what you actually get from someone who’s accidentally landed a senior role – with no proper training in Management or Leadership – is someone who doesn’t know how to lead. Someone who has acres of experience in all sorts of things – but things which don’t really translate effectively into managing other people.
Management – Leadership – requiea a whole range of new skills and behaviours, some of which are innate, and others that need to be taught. Managing a whole team of people, overseeing their workload, anticipating and meeting their needs, strategically planning and understanding the bigger picture – both for the organisation or industry, and for the current environment and culture in their team – with the complex and ever changing dynamic of so many people…well…if you never intended to do it, you’re probably going to struggle to do it!
You’ve almost certainly met this kind of leader – and worked with them; you might even be the person who found yourself in a senior role by accident, and are finding that the reality is very different to what you expected, and much harder than you thought it would be!
We all know how frustrating it can be, when a Leader doesn’t really know what they’re doing – or how to get the best from anyone else. It’s also scary for the accidental manager; it’s horrible knowing that you’re out of your depth, desperately hoping nobody can see the panic in your eyes as you try to learn the ropes without making any huge mistakes that could get you fired, or cripple your organisation!
But how could anyone perform well at something they’ve never done before – and how can any business get the best from their Leaders and Managers if they are never taught how to be Leaders and Managers?
Unfortunately, most people aren’t given this kind of development or support: in a recent survey from the Chartered Management Institute, 82% of people report that, when they are promoted into a management role, they received no proper training for the position.
It seems that a lot of people think that management and leadership are ‘natural talents’ – that people either are or are not ‘a leader’, or that management roles are simply the natural progression for long-standing employees. You put in your time, and are rewarded each time you perform well with the next step up, until you hit that ‘level of incompetence’ the Peter Principle described.
Looking at the statistics again, more than a quarter of senior managers and leaders (26%) and over half of managers (52%) have never been given any formal management or leadership training.
Never.
Eek!
You might be wondering why that matters; after all – if so many managers have never had formal training for their leadership role, surely that’s because it’s not needed…?
And either way, what’s the worst that could happen?
Just one bad Manager is the bad apple that can rot the whole barrel; just one person, who causes such harm or disruption to the people they are supposed to be leading that nobody can perform well. One person who can wreak absolute havoc on the entire business. They don’t even have to be bad people – just bad at their job.
So many people have left jobs that were otherwise great – jobs they loved – because of the negative impact one bad manager had.
A negative impact that – with the right training and support – could have been avoided!
So why are so few organisations offering this training?
There are all kinds of reasons – but the most likely is that they want to cut costs, or avoid spending anything more than the bare minimum they can get away with. This is especially true if the business is facing any difficulties, has been hit by unexpected change, or are struggling to meet sales targets…or if their best, most talented people have jumped ship…
…unfortunately, the L&D budget, and any investment in training or development, is one of the first areas a lot of organisations cut spending. It saves money in the short term, and if you are promoting the best performing people into your leadership jobs you might think they don’t need training, because they already work here!?
If you don’t invest in your people, cutting those L&D budgets will always end up costing your organisation, and all the people in it, much more – not only financially, but in every way that should matter. Security, success, progress, development, ambition, well-being, autonomy, trust, respect – there are so many ways that people need the right support to thrive in their work, and to work in a culture that delivers that support.
Those initial savings will result in more negative outcomes, a lack of progress on the targets or outcomes you want your people to achieve, and problems in your teams that are guaranteed to bring you far more expense in the long term…
Expense from losing the skills, experience and industry insight that you lose when unhappy people quit, the expense of recruitment and retraining for new hires, the cost of lost hours and lost business when your new team is trying to learn the ropes, and the cost of security, camaraderie and growth that comes with strong staff retention.
Can anyone really be a Manager or Leader accidentally?
Perhaps not always accidentally – but certainly without really considering why they are taking the job. Accidental Leaders are usually there for entirely the wrong reasons; maybe they wanted more money, or more power in their team? Maybe they are friends with the more senior leaders, and got the job because of that relationship? Maybe they were dissatisfied with how things were done, and wanted more control over the direction of the company, or the way things are done, or other people? They might just have been in the organisation for years, and they – or their senior managers – felt like they deserved a promotion purely because they’ve ‘served their time’.
Does any of that guarantee that they are suitable for the role, or going to do it well?
46% of the managers surveyed believe that colleagues won their role / promotion based on their profile, internal relationships and influence, rather than on their ability or performance.
If your organisation doesn’t know how to specifically recruit for Leadership, or what a great Leader should look like, it can feel like a safe choice to pick the person who wants it most, or to favour loyalty.
Leadership matters: invest in the skills, communication and confidence of your leaders, and reap the rewards across the whole team.
How bad could it be...?
As I said above, putting the wrong people in positions of power could negatively impact your teams, and your whole organisation, in countless and often hugely significant ways. We often have clients looking for a programme to shift the direction or culture of their organisation, because there are already problems or problematic behaviours in their leadership team.
Investing in your managers and leaders, and in development and training that will help them learn the skills and behaviours that leading successfully require, is always a good decision…
…but it’s much harder to fix something that’s broken than it would have been to build it well in the first place!
L&D – particularly for Leadership teams – is something that many organisations do too late in the game, if it is done at all.
If you invest in your future leaders, before they have the responsibility of managing others, and in developing those specific leadership skills so that they are fully prepared for what the job brings, you can identify who has the potential for great Leadership much earlier in their career.
Wanting to be a Leader is far from being all the role requires if you want them to lead well – and years of experience and expertise in one role doesn’t always translate well into leading other people.
A quarter of people surveyed (27%) rated their managers as ‘Highly Effective’. Unfortunately, that means that three quarters of respondents don’t think that their management are effective – and of those, more than 50% planned to leave their current company within the next 12 months because of issues with management.
Of those who did rate their leaders as ‘effective’, 21% still plan to move on, because they recognise that there still isn’t enough development or training available in their role, whether it’s for their leaders or the team themselves.
18% of managers reported that they are not confident in their leadership abilities.
60% say that, though they are confident, they do need more development.
Some of the specific challenges they named were how hard it can be to deal sensitively with the well-being of their people, or support them if they are facing issues – at home and in work – and how much harder it is to support the needs and development of other people on top of their own challenges.
Because Leadership doesn’t just mean telling people what to do!
Any Leader – whether they are there deliberately or accidentally – quickly learns that the role is far more diverse and complicated than they expected. That there are tasks, behaviours and communication skills that they never knew they’d need. That the overall culture of the organisation, and the well-being of their people, is a more significant part of any management role than the technical or industry experience they assumed would be the key to their success…
Development and training for your people – especially before they take on more senior roles – also creates a culture of learning; a culture where development, growth, understanding and cohesion are embedded, and your people are secure and confident in their work.
The culture your people work within relies on people thinking, feeling and behaving in ways that align with your company values – so your Leaders need to model and embody those values, in their own work, in the way they communicate, how they lead, influence, develop and train the people they are leading.
Lead by example.
Invest in the future of your people, and in the potential they all hold as leaders, managers and high-performing teams.
For more information about our Expert to Leader programme – or any of the other Leadership Development programmes we offer – download our brochure, or contact one of the ASK team today; we’d be happy to discuss any development needs you have, and how our tailored programmes could help.
Just ASK!