There’s a common saying in the leadership world: “Employees don’t quit jobs, they quit managers.” What that really means is that the relationship between team members and their managers is the single most important factor in employee engagement. Beyond that, everyday interactions between managers and employees also impact culture, retention, productivity, customer satisfaction, and even profits.
That’s a lot of pressure to put on managers, especially for how little training—if any—new managers often receive. In fact, most managers report that they’re left to figure it out for themselves. In the 2015 Gallup report “State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice For Leaders,” 57% of surveyed managers claimed they learned their leadership skills through trial and error, not through any official training.
Without setting them up with the tools to be successful, new and inexperienced leaders may find the path toward effective leadership more confusing and difficult to travel.
Why New Managers Struggle to Succeed
According to research from CEB Global—now part of Gartner—from 2019, a whopping 60% of new managers will fail within two years. What’s more, if they’re struggling to transition into their leadership role, their direct reports will perform 15% worse (on average) than their peers and be 20% more likely to quit or disengage from their work.
The easiest thing is to blame the new managers, but inexperience is often inherent to how they come into a leadership role. Many managers are promoted on the basis of technical skills in their old role. Yet, the skills that made them successful in their previous role often cause them to fail as a leader.
Create a New Path Toward Success
Most front-line managers in leadership roles lack the critical skills that would lead them to greater success: active listening, clearly communicating with employees, setting priorities, motivating teams, managing conflict, team-building, managing performance, coaching and developing their team, etc. So many of these involve unspoken rules of business that are difficult to teach and often nearly impossible to follow without some form of instruction. And yet, they’re vitally important to business, manager and team success.
Looking back at those Gartner numbers—a 60% failure rate, worse employee performance, and decreased retention—the stakes around providing new managers with the knowledge, training and support they need become far clearer. But it’s one thing to acknowledge the issues, and something entirely different to take the necessary steps to fix them.
Help Your Managers Find Their Lead
Enter Find Your Lead, our training program for managers who are new to leadership or experienced leaders seeking a refreshed perspective on leadership. Led by Dan Corp, president of Advanced Time, the mixed delivery format offers new leaders greater flexibility or structure depending on their needs.
On the Find Your Lead YouTube channel, leaders both new and seasoned can watch a series of educational videos with practical lessons and exercises to support day-to-day leadership efforts. And for those ready to take their leadership journey to the next level, Dan will help managers find their lead through a three-month-long online course.
Each “class” will have a limited number of openings, with opportunities for participant interaction, collaboration and co-education as Dan guides the students toward becoming confident, effective leaders.
If you’re curious about the courses offered, would like more details, or simply want to know when the first class is kicking off, sign up for our Find Your Lead mailing list. We’ll keep you in the loop on when the Find Your Lead program officially launches without overwhelming your inbox with junk:
