Leadership can be learned, but not in the classroom.
Talent Management's Industry News section reports on a study conducted by Novations about corporate training: "Survey: Corporate Trainers Pressed to Limit Time off Job." Here's a key quote.
"In fact, our study suggests the investment in training continues to rise. But the trend is away from the classroom and a greater effort to tie learning to day-to-day challenges in the workplace.”
This is good, and it's far better than the view of training that prevailed when I was starting out in business. Even so, things are still pretty grim for anyone promoted to a management position.
In many companies new managers are expected to go out and manage with no training at all in the supervisory leadership parts of the job. In many companies there is no support system for the new manager, unless he or she is lucky enough to have a good mentor. And, in many companies there is no development program at all for managers.
We know how you grow great managers in your company and it's not by sending them to more training. Here's what we know.
Start by promoting people who are likely to succeed in the job. They should have shown evidence that they're willing to make decisions and willing to confront others about performance or behavior. They should like helping other people succeed. And they should be comfortable with the fact that their team will be their destiny.
Give those people some basic training in supervisory leadership skills. This training should provide a framework for making decisions about how to manage a group to improved performance. Training should also cover self-critique and self-development.
Provide a learning and support framework for the new manager to use on the job. Leadership is an apprentice trade. You learn most of it on the job from other managers. You'll learn best when try things out and critique your performance and keep doing this over and over and over.
Your company can create an environment that encourages this on-the-job learning. Provide technological ways for managers to exchange shoptalk and ask questions of each other. Provide regular opportunities for your managers to meeting with peers and more experienced managers. I've developed free guidelines for creating groups to do this.
Provide development opportunities for your managers. These are permanent or temporary assignments where the manager can develop skills and perspective or improve visibility.
Use your training the way great leadership development companies, like General Electric do. For them training is the carrier of culture and a place to develop relationships with other managers from across the company.
The concern with new techniques and with accountability is important. But leadership is something best learned on the job. The best thing you can do is create the environment for that to happen.
Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.
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Categories: leadership development, Leadership Learning, Leadership Training
Obviously, the first thing you can do to make good mangers is to promote the right people. Seems simple, but all too often it doesn't happen that way. People are often promoted to get them more money, prestige or because they're the best at the technical aspects of the work, with little attention paid to their skills (or lack thereof) with people. In other words, the best engineer doesn't necessarily make the best supervisor of engineers, for example.
Secondly, it seems to me from my experience that the best thing companies can do in this area is to assign a new manager a mentor. However, the mentor "program" has to make absolutely sure that the mentors are the right people. Mentors must have the respect of the workforce and credibility with other mangers and should be chosen for their abilities in management, not for political reasons or because it sounds good (hey, I'm a mentor!). As you say, the best mangers usually learned from a good manager. "Do as I do, not as I say" is the truth that's often overlooked by Management. If bad behavior is rewarded, it becomes very difficult to develop good mangers.
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I get nervous around "assigned" mentors. You're right that if companies choose the right people and pay attention to the match-up it's a good thing, but I don't think they do that.
My first suggestion for a new manager is to identify role models. I've found that has two benefits. First, you can always use a role model, even when a mentor isn't available. And, often, a nearby role model winds up turning into a mentor.
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Managing people is an art of personality. Often, trust and credibility are damaged from the first step when a manager attempts to supervise people in a job that the manager does not understand. So, some level of knowledge is necessary. But, overall, I agree that the best technical person does not correlate to the best manager. In fact, they are usually inversely correlated. Leaders earn trust by standing side by side with co-workers and doing the job together. They are teachers and not judges. Leaders don't bark out orders. They serve their fellow employees in the way that a waiter stands ready to serve a dinner guest. Get them what they need and get out of the way.
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