Business leaders often struggle with developing and training their mid-level management teams. In fact, managers are often the most poorly trained employees in an organisation. A 2023 Chartered Management Institute (CMI) study showed 82% of new managers had no formal training. Some refer to this under-developed group as “accidental managers.” And it’s not like they make up for their lack of training with some natural inclination to manage. Gallup reported that only 1 in 10 people inherently possess management talent.
This disconnect should be a huge concern for small business leaders. Management teams act as the operational connection between executive leadership and the organisation’s frontline employees. They oversee the execution and delivery of company objectives and goals. Yet they are dramatically unprepared to perform their jobs well, because most small business leaders don’t spend enough time teaching their managers how to actually manage people.
The Difference Between Management and Leadership
There is a notable difference between the talents and activities of your leadership team and those of your management team. In his recent article on Entrepreneur.com, The Alternative Board President & CEO Jason Zickerman explained:
“Leaders are visionaries who inspire and motivate their team toward a shared future goal. They possess a clear sense of direction and purpose and see the bigger picture. Managers, on the other hand, focus on executing the vision set by leaders. Leaders prioritise innovation and are open to exploring new ideas and approaches. They encourage creativity and are willing to take risks to drive change and progress. Managers work within established guidelines to maintain uniformity and consistency.”
These distinctions matter. When business owners confuse the goals and objectives of leadership with those of managers, not only do the requirements of the roles get muddied, but the entire system falters due to lack of clarity, harmful blind spots, and inefficiencies.
Managers are not the creators of vision or mission. Instead, your management team should be almost exclusively tasked with the day-to-day execution of strategies, operations, and oversight of the employees who deliver those activities.
Is Bad Management Hurting My Business?
The cost of management team dysfunction can be deal-breaking. According to Ben Wigert, Director of Research and Strategy for Workplace Management at Gallup, the cost of lost productivity due to poor management is estimated at $8.8 trillion per year, which is equivalent to about 9% of global GDP. That staggering number more than suggests that every small business leader should be considering the training, capability, and efficiency of their management teams.
These massive losses are mostly related to high employee turnover, lower productivity, and customer churn. Poorly trained managers quietly miss deadlines, discourage high performance, and create ambiguity where opportunity should exist.
Good managers free leadership up to work on high-level strategies; poorly trained managers can mire down a small business in apathy, inefficiencies, and disengagement.
Which sounds better to you?
What Motivates a Leadership Team?
Low motivation throughout an organisation is a common symptom of weak management. Unmotivated teams are often mirroring or negatively reacting to their managers’ behaviours.
Managers who are guilty of demotivating their teams often do so by exhibiting unclear priorities, lack of recognition, poor delegation, and micromanagement (a subtle but powerful motivation killer). Employee motivation requires far more than setting goals or giving an occasional pep talk in a team meeting. Motivation and employee happiness are most directly related to how managers communicate with and treat the workers they oversee.
Your management team wields an awful lot of power in the productivity of your small business. Have you prepared them well for the job?
How Do I Know If My Managers Need Training?
The first signs of a management team in need of training often appear in the manager’s own habits and approaches. Negative behaviours like inconsistent decision-making, lack of accountability, poor communication, and resistance to change are all tell-tale signs of an underdeveloped manager.
From a systemic perspective, symptoms of management team dysfunction might include repeated employee complaints, high staff turnover, recurring errors, and siloed work.
You can’t expect your management team to be perfect, but when mistakes turn into patterns, it’s arguably time to consider advanced management training and development. Few small business owners doubt the need for leadership development for their executive team. The same consideration should be given to your managers, who are in the trenches every day.
When Managers Create More Problems Than They Solve
Untrained managers are not just inefficient; they can actually initiate and escalate conflict. For example, micromanagers create tension and job dissatisfaction among the employees they oversee. Poor managers often overcomplicate workflows and create bottlenecks rather than efficiencies.
Management team dysfunction can take many forms, but the aftermath almost always leads to disengagement and poor productivity. It often forces small business leaders to spend more of their valuable time fixing messes rather than working at a higher, more strategic level. Which, ironically, was the reason they hired a management team to execute their vision in the first place.
How Poor Management Impacts Culture
The executive suite often gets blamed when company culture is viewed in a negative light. And while this might certainly be true in some cases, a nosedive in culture doesn’t always start at the top. Cultural erosion often ripples from middle management outward, because in many ways, managers are the gatekeepers and messengers between the executive suite and the rest of the team.
Middle management should reinforce culture daily, but if they are the problem due to misalignment or lack of training, then trust is eroded and disengagement spreads quickly. It just takes one poorly developed manager to negatively influence many workers or departments. Now consider the multiplier effect of an entire management team that lacks proper skills and training, and the substantial impact the spread of that problem can have on your company culture, not to mention your bottom line.
Managers are also often looking for career advancement. By providing them with the tools they need to succeed in their current roles, you are better positioning them for further growth within your company. This type of opportunity is a huge morale and culture booster.
What Great Management Looks Like
We’ve covered a lot of what weak or poorly developed management looks like. Now, let’s look at how great managers set themselves apart.
Here are some common characteristics, talents, and behaviours of strong managers:
- Communicates clearly both up and down the line
- Listens effectively and empathetically
- Makes timely decisions aligned with leadership
- Takes accountability for themselves and their team
- Is adaptable and resilient under pressure
- Acts fairly, consistently, and respectfully with everyone in the organisation
- Empowers employees through delegation
- Models the company vision and cultural alignment
While some managers might innately possess some of these qualities, being a great manager is not a personality trait but rather a set of skills that can be taught and developed.
Why Experience Alone Just Doesn’t Cut It
Star employees are often promoted to management positions as a natural progression of their roles. But years on the job or success in sales doesn’t automatically equate to the skills, talents, or experience it takes to be a great manager.
When hiring externally, CVs can also be misleading. What looks good on paper (“I managed a team of 35 employees”) might not tell the whole story, even when backed up by seemingly impressive productivity indicators—unless you have a baseline to compare it to. And who knows, maybe the employees were great despite their manager’s shortcomings.
Even seasoned and effective managers often need training and development, as workplace norms and technologies are changing today at a record pace.
Proactive Management Training Is the Key
With so much at stake, developing your managers should be a priority to support the long-term success of your business. Consider management training not as an expense but as an investment in the future of your business.
A proactive approach to management training can reduce the risk of problems before they arise, and it creates consistency across your management team. Many small business owners who implement a management training programme see almost immediate and tangible improvements in operations, productivity, communication, and employee morale.
Elevate Your Managers with the HI-MAP Accelerator Programme
The Alternative Board’s High Impact Manager Accelerator Programme, or HI-MAP, equips management teams with both the concrete and soft skills they need to perform their job confidently and effectively. Using a proven approach, management teams and the organisations they work for experience improvements in operations, efficiencies, and long-term success.
HI-MAP delivers measurable outcomes and drives major wins like:
- Increased productivity and profits
- Better employee retention
- Improved company value
- Attracting and recruiting high-quality candidates
- More engaged employees who take initiative
- Higher workplace satisfaction rates
- Inspired and innovative thinking
- Stronger risk management
HI-MAP consists of four development paths:
Path 1: The Improvement Path
Boosts productivity, communication, and coaching. Managers sharpen communication, time management, and mentoring within The Alternative Board’s exclusive PAVE framework.
Path 2: The Influence Path
Builds clarity, confidence, and purpose through facilitation, negotiation, inspiring leadership, and culture-building.
Path 3: The Talent Path
Focuses on attracting, retaining, and developing the right people, including recruitment, retention, and navigating challenging relationships.
Path 4: The Team Action Path
Positions teams for next-level thinking with strategy execution, critical success factors, goals, action planning, and KPIs.
The Absolute Value of Better Management
Having an ineffective or untrained management team can be an expensive mistake. Poor management development often leads to unmotivated teams, inefficiencies, lagging performance, and other systemic issues. It can undermine your business at virtually every level.
Take time to consider how aligned and effective your current management team is, and whether you’ve truly equipped them with the tools, insight, and training they need to drive your business forward.
Remember: the stronger your managers are, the more successful your business will be, today, tomorrow, and well into the future.
If you’d like to learn more about HI-MAP or The Alternative Board’s business-building and strategic leadership services, click here to contact us.