Why managers struggle when the company starts to scale
Fast growth puts pressure on every part of a business.
The exec board needs the company to decide fast and execute at pace.
That’s often the point where the business discovers a problem. The front line and mid-level managers just aren’t equipped for what the company now needs from them as leaders.
As the business scales, expectations of leaders rise
Lead other people through complexity that they’ve never experienced before.
Think more commercially and strategically.
Coach others to develop new skills and move faster.
Make decisions with limited data and messy context.
Influence cross-functionally.
And keep the BAU lights on and the fires out.
But nobody has given the leaders the tools
Managers were promoted because they were good at the job they used to do. They were excellent technical specialists, analysts, salespeople or project leads. They were reliable. They got things done. They met goals.
"They don't become great leaders simply because they’ve been recruited into those more senior roles on the basis that they've been a great salesperson, a great product person, a great marketer — and they've not been recruited because they demonstrate true leadership traits."
— Ian Turner, Head of HR, Sunbelt Rentals UK & Ireland
When they became a manager, the expectation changed from “Can you deliver?” to “Can you create the conditions for other people to deliver?”
Scaling puts managers at the point where corporate ambition meets execution.
Three-quarters of US managers surveyed by SHRM said that balancing the expectations of senior management and frontline employees was demanding, while 55% often felt caught between the strategic vision and the practical realities facing their teams.
Promotion without support – the ‘accidental manager’
Many managers are promoted with very little support. They may be given a new job title, a team and a broader set of responsibilities, but not the tools, measures or direction they need to succeed. In fact:
No formal training when promoted
82% of UK managers and 77% of US managers aren’t given any formal training when they are promoted (and only 25% were promoted for their leadership ability).
No formal training - ever
33% of UK managers and 56% in the US have never received any management / leadership training or development.
Lack confidence
18% of UK managers say they aren't confident in their own leadership abilities, and over half who say they're confident, still feel they need further development.
Hide their 'unpreparedness'
74% of managers hid their ‘unpreparedness’ from their team or boss – rising to 87% of Gen Z.
Competing priorities cause confusion
Sometimes managers are given several different priorities and told that all of them are equally important:
Grow revenue.
Improve performance.
Develop the team.
Fix the process.
Increase accountability.
Be more strategic.
Stay close to the detail.
Support the senior team.
Protect the customer experience.
None of those things may be wrong. The problem is that without a clear view of the wider business goals, the role, the measures and the trade-offs, the manager is left to interpret the job for themselves. That is a difficult place to lead from, especially for the first time, without the tools or skills.
When ‘good’ isn’t defined, managers stick to what they know
When managers do not know what good looks like, they tend to look backwards. They use the habits that made them successful before. They rely on effort, personal standards, relationships and technical knowledge. Those things may have got them promoted, they may be just enough for a ‘business as usual’ team but they will not be enough to help the business scale.
If the job is not defined clearly and support given, most people will default to what they already know and what they were valued for.
They keep solving the problems themselves.
They carry on being the expert.
They step in when a team member is struggling.
They pick up work that should be delegated.
They attend more meetings, take on more escalation, answer more questions and become the bottleneck.
Unaddressed, bottleneck eventually becomes burnout for the manager and their team.
It’s also common for managers to feel guilty when they are not “doing the work”. If they spend time coaching, planning, reviewing, and especially ‘thinking’, it can feel less productive or tangible than delivering a ‘task’. So they keep doing too much themselves, even when the business now needs them to lead differently.
The impact on the team
Workers who rate their manager as ineffective are significantly more likely to be planning to leave their company in the next 12 months (50%) versus 21% whose manager is effective. Around a third of all managers are likely to leave their job in the next 12 months.
Only 27% of workers assessed their manager as highly effective. 37% said somewhat effective. (Taking responsibility - why UK plc needs better managers)
The reality is that inexperienced and under-developed managers don’t just struggle themselves. Their struggle becomes the team's struggle. Team members don't get the clarity of direction they need. They don't get the sponsorship up and across the business that they need, and they themselves often lack development.
In an experienced team, often the members can carry the load, for a while anyway. They crack on doing the job that they know how to do, but if the manager doesn’t delegate or feels that they need to have all of the answers, they quickly disempower their teams. As teams become disempowered, they become increasingly reactive, narrow-focused, and less psychologically safe to challenge or ask questions that could help productivity or performance. They keep their heads down, do what they’re asked to do and become increasingly disengaged.
Then when the business needs the team to step up during periods of change or fast growth, even the most experienced teams are not equipped.
The player-manager trap
There’s an even bigger challenge for some managers. According to Benedictine University's research, 44% of managers are still expected to do most or all of their previous job after they are promoted. The classic player-manager.
This is one of the hardest roles, and the challenge just grows with scale. The individual is still expected to contribute directly, but they are also expected to manage, coach, develop and coordinate others. On paper, that can seem like the only pragmatic step when the workload needs a leader but the revenue doesn’t yet support it. In practice, it can be very confusing and frustrating for everyone.
Whilst the manager has all the pressures we’ve just described, the mixed messages from the business – and the mixed messages their team pick up - amplify. The individual contributor role is known, comfortable and the muscle memory is strong. They know what they are measured on and there are usually visible consequences if the tasks don’t get done. The player-manager rolls up their sleeves and gets in the trenches with the team. But who tracks the time they spend on doing versus managing? They get stuck between individual tasks and reactive management meetings and reporting and the important proactive work of team productivity and performance slips down the to do list.
What scaling businesses really need from their leaders
As a company scales, managers become the layer that translates strategy into action. They connect senior leadership intent with the day-to-day choices being made across the business. If that layer is strong, the business moves faster and with cross-functional consistency. If it is weak, growth becomes harder than it needs to be.
Good managers in a scaling business need to do more than keep the work moving. They need to
Understand and work with the wider business context.
Make better decisions sooner and execute faster.
Adopt repeatable systems and processes that reduce complexity, decrease errors and increase speed.
Hold people accountable for delivery at pace without creating fear or dependency.
Coach rather than rescue.
Delegate properly, not just hand tasks over and hope for the best.
Work across functions to join up work.
Challenge constructively and influence upwards with confidence.
How to develop your manager and leaders
This is where leadership development has to become practical. It cannot be a generic training that sits outside the real work. It has to help managers understand what is expected of them in this business, at this stage of growth, with these commercial goals and this leadership culture.
Five tips to support your leaders' development
1. Role clarity
Be very clear on what the job is, what's expected of them, how they will be measured, and the expectation of how much time they should be spending on management and leadership. Be clear too on what they should give up doing.
2. Define 'good'
Define what a good leader looks like in your business. Set out clear leadership behaviours, values, and principles that every leader is expected to follow. If your senior exec aren’t acting as role models, they may need development too.
3. Develop skills
Provide formal leadership development: not tick-box, cookie-cutter training. Meet the leaders where they are and deliver a program to help them lead themselves, their team, their peers and to lead up.
4. Clear goals
Ensure they are clear on goals, measures of success and a plan to execute.
Be explicit on how the business operates and how their team’s goals roll up into the company’s goals and targets.
5. Peer support
Create a culture of peer support so managers support each other, collaborate more closely and grow together.
" I find that sometimes organisations give managers procedural management training i.e. how to set goals, have difficult conversations etc and don’t spend an appropriate length of time explaining the “why” – how the business makes and loses money, the company strategy, the P&L risks and opportunities etc. This gives managers the wider context and enables them to be empowered to make the right decisions for both their people AND the business.
The other area is emotional intelligence. Really understanding what makes individuals tick (and what demotivates them) and how to embrace this to drive performance is something many new managers need support with – a few have this is a natural talent but for many it’s a taught capability.”
— Ian Turner, Head of HR, Sunbelt Rentals UK & Ireland
Leadership development is not a nice to have. When you are looking to scale the business, you need people to decide fast and execute together. They don't know how to do that unless you equip them to do it.
Author
This article was written by Anna Britnor Guest, MD at Alate.
With over 20 years of running Alate and 30 years in B2B tech, Anna builds the sales and leadership capability that closes the gap between ambitious growth targets and the people who have to deliver them. She is a Member of the Institute of Directors, Squadify Pro, PRISM Practitioner and a Founding Fellow of the Institute of Sales Professionals.
Contributor
Thank you to Ian Turner, Head of HR at Sunbelt Rentals for contributing to this article.
Listen to Ian talking with Dan Hammond and Pia Lee on the Squadify We Not Me podcast: The human-centric business leader
FAQs
What sources are you quoting for management and leadership statistics?
What improvement in organisational performance do companies see when they invest in management and leadership development programs?
According to the Good Managers: Why the UK Needs Better Managers research by CMI and UGov, companies see a 23% increase in organisational performance and a 32% increase in employee engagement and productivity when they invest in management and leadership development.
What is an accidental manager?
Someone who has been promoted to the role of manager but without ever having any training, development, or true guidance in how to do the role. They’ve basically ‘fallen into it’.
Does management and leadership development make managers more confident and capable in their abilities?
Managers who have received formal training are significantly more likely to feel confident in their management abilities compared to those who have not. They are more likely to ask for feedback, trust their team, feel comfortable leading change, and calling out bad behaviour.
43% of managers say the skill they most wish they had been taught is coaching and developing people.
61% of managers (76% of Gen Z managers) say formal management education would have made them competent faster, and 81% would enroll in a structured program if their employer paid for it.
Our own results speak volumes. Well-equipped leaders manage challenging situations, move faster and join up with their peers to execute together. They contribute to the top line and the bottom line.
What is a player-manager?
A player-manager is someone who is expected to be both a people line manager and deliver individual tasks. For instance, a sales manager who is expected to both run a sales team and carry their own individual quota, or a project manager who is expected to manage a team of project managers, but also runs their own projects. Often, the amount of time they're expected to spend on these individual tasks is not defined and almost certainly not measured.
Why do companies promote people and not give them the right support?
Companies often promote people with really good intention as part of a talent pipeline or an opportunity for the individual to grow. There’s a need in the business and they see someone able to fill it. They plan to support them, but other priorities override good intentions. Often:
No method for providing leadership development exists.
And
Their line manager isn’t equipped to support them.
And
They just never get round to it.
What specific skills should we develop our leaders and promoted managers with, and why?
At Alate we see five core components to developing managers and leaders:
Lead yourself
Lead up
Lead across
Lead teams
Lead change
This equips managers with the broad and highly practical toolkit they need for their current and future leadership roles. Specifically for new managers, some of the hardest areas, according to the research, are:
Giving critical feedback, managing performance and resolving conflict.
Making the transition to manager – managing former peers and earning the team’s respect.
Delegating work and empowering their team.
Providing coaching and development support.
Skills and credibility to manage upwards and across the business.
Stepping back from doing to leading, and becoming comfortable without having all the answers.
What does Alate do differently?
We see leaders as key to fast growth. Leaders need to feel well equipped with the right skills and capability to be effective in their day-to-day work. When we develop leaders and managers, particularly those who have never received any formal learning or development, we focus very clearly on:
the company's growth plans
the skills and capabilities of the teams to deliver on those plans
how to work together to grow the business and measure their progress
We work on their real situations and real challenges, helping them to learn together and build strong peer support networks that can last a career.
As we develop management and leadership skills, we draw a clear line of sight from the behaviours that managers demonstrate in their day-to-day work, through the performance outcomes for them, their teams, and their projects, and ultimately how that accelerates into the business growth outcomes.
Ready to develop your leaders?
Let's start a conversation