Bosses need training and lots of support
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In March, CareerBuilder released the results of a survey of 3910 US workers. Here's the lead from the news release.
"According to a new CareerBuilder survey, more than one-quarter (26 percent) of managers said they weren’t ready to become a leader when they started managing others."
Yikes. I'm not sure you can ever be fully prepared for the transition from individual contributor to boss. It's more like a career change than a job change. But there are things we can do to reduce the proportion of the unprepared.
Start by giving those who are interested in making the move a realistic idea of what the boss's job includes. Job shadowing is a start. If they're still interested give the person an opportunity to try on the role, but provide them with support in the form of a mentor, trainer, or a more experienced manager.
That will give the person an idea of whether the actual work of being a boss is for them. It will give the people who make selection of new bosses some evidence to use in making their choices so they can move beyond guess work.
Being a boss is an apprentice trade. Most of the learning will come on the job. Training can help structure the learning and mentors can make it more effective. But according to CareerBuilder there's very little training going on.
"Fifty-eight percent said they didn’t receive any management training."
That's NO training. Zero training. None. That's a scandal.
For heaven's sake, we train newly hired janitors and gate guards. You need training to be a cosmetologist. But more than half the people in first line management get NO training!?
Get this straight. Managers need training. First line managers are the people in your company most responsible for both morale and productivity. It only makes sense to help them do a good job.
Leadership at any level is an apprentice trade. You learn most of it on the job. You learn faster and better if you have a more seasoned manager to guide you and if you encourage feedback and use it.
Even so, it takes a while to get the basics right. In my experience, the transition from individual contributor to a boss who is competent in the basics of the job takes more than a year. If you want to master the job, count on at least a decade of purposeful work.
It's not over then. You're never done learning and developing. Training and development opportunities remain important, and peer support groups can make all managers better.
Boss's Bottom Line
One of the most exciting things about your job is that there's always more to learn, plus you get to help other people succeed.
Hat Tip: Thanks to Sharlyn Lauby whose excellent
post "Do The Job, Get The Job, Get Trained" at HR Bartender inspired
this post.
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
Thanks for the mention Wally. I totally agree not providing managers with training is scandalous. Training is an essential tool for success.
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Thanks for the kind word, Sharlyn, and for reminding me how important it is.
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It would be great if companies actually put their new managers through a training program but that just does not happen enough. This leaves the managers to pursue skill development on their own initiative...but initiative is what it's all about anyway. This leadership Blog is a good place to start. The answer to the question "Okay, I'm a manager now, what do I do next?"...go find quality management training resources and start the journey.
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Well said, Mike. What's most important is the learning and training can provide some of it. For companies, though, helping a manager learn from experience more effectively makes a pretty good goal.
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The statistics don't surprise me at all after having experienced this first-hand. I wonder if the mentality is that the managers above the first-line managers believe that "they will learn from experience, just like I did."
That mistake would have been better learned from than repeated!
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Good points, Peter, thank you. My experience in the corporate world was that I received no training for my management role, even though I was originally hired as a Management Trainee." There was plenty of training on products and on marketing, but nothing on management. I would have hoped that had changed by now, but it doesn't seem to. Some organizations rely on what I call "Tavern Training" where a new manager is taken out for a couple of beers after work and gets to listen to the old hands tell war stories and give conflicting advice. And some organizations, mostly civil service, especially police and fire, require some form of training for new bosses.
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This seems to be a trend in recent years. I too have experienced this first hand in previous jobs and felt like I was being set up to fail rather than to succeed.
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Let me split those two issues, William. I absolutely believe that far too many people, not just managers, are being set up to fail because they aren't given the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to do a good job. But I don't think that's anything new. It was true forty years ago (see my reply to Peter's comment) and it hasn't changed much at all. Unfortunately, my friend, you're not alone. Thanks for commenting.
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Twenty years ago I transferred from the role of head of client services at a $6 million business to, the next day being the general manager. It happened without one word from the owners about setting goals and the skills required to achieve them. On my own initiative I promptly set off to get some management training.
Sadly, organizations will continue to continue to take this risk, i.e., that the new manager will acquire by osmosis the complex skills required to lead people.
Two thoughts:
1. Encourage people, especially management prospects to think of their own professional development needs – it has to be a shared accountability
2. Encourage mentoring – internally and externally – as part of that shared responsibility. Here's a post on "7 Better Mentoring Questions."
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Thanks for the thoughtful comment and for sharing those two specifics, Alan. Last year I expressed similar sentiments about managers needing to take charge of their own professional development in "Becoming a Great Leader is Up to You."
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Bosses do need training as they have to lead the organization. If training is absent then they work hard and gain knowledge from experience.
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Thank you, Rashmi. My worry is about the damage they do while they're learning from experience with very little guidance.
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