When a manager is in place who hasn’t had any management training, it weakens an entire organisation.

Often, those leaders have been promoted to management positions because they have proven functional skills.

What they don’t have is leadership skills. They haven’t been given the opportunity to develop the emotional intelligence and soft skills needed for the modern workplace. They lack the management development that improves communication, resilience, and support.

These are known as accidental managers. It’s a common issue.

Throw in a little bit of imposter syndrome and it’s clear that the result will be increasing pressure to deliver results, combined with mismanagement (or even neglect) of their respective teams. Leaders have a lot of responsibilities, and the pressure is on them to deliver. Those responsibilities are in a constant state of flux, as organisations are impacted by  automation, hybrid working, and the massive impact of digital transformation.

As leaders emerge, they need to learn the skills required to grow alongside their responsibilities. It’s the companies that are taking a more serious approach to upskilling their team members with leadership and management training courses that will become the vanguards of business optimisation.

Those forward-thinking organisations aren’t just upskilling their current leaders, but also investing in their future leaders.

Anyone can learn how to use a spreadsheet or set up a Zoom call. But what about those soft leadership skills that turn ineffective leaders into the driving force of an organisation? Is it possible to teach the soft people skills essential for being a better leader?

One of the key issues with most organisations is that they approach leadership development in the wrong way. They promote an individual into management without any overall plan to ensure they have the time and space to develop essential leadership skills.

One in four managers have never had any management training. In many organisations, there’s little to no sign of a management training course, and the newly promoted are generally abandoned to figure everything out by themselves. According to a study by thehrdirector.com, more than 68% of managers consider themselves to be ‘accidental managers’.

Because they were promoted based on their individual contributions, the newly promoted all too easily fall back on what they know they’re good at. They don’t become leaders; they become doers. Rather than leading, they spend their days micromanaging, failing to build relationships, and being vague about team goals. Everything becomes a question they cannot answer without input from those above them.

The result? Poor team performance, a workforce that becomes increasingly disengaged, and the predictable high rate of staff turnover. People don’t leave jobs; they leave managers.

The solution? Leadership and management training courses that teach those otherwise excellent individuals the leadership skills they need. After all, a good leader isn’t a different kind of human — nobody is born to lead. 

The workforce of today is flexible, digitally empowered, and mobile. Teams are intergenerational and diverse, and the millennial workforce in particular is embracing the Great Resignation.

To lead those teams requires a whole new skill set.

According to LinkedIn Learning’s 5th Annual Workplace Learning Report (2021), upskilling (and reskilling) is the single most important priority for learning and development professionals. It’s easy enough to see why.

Research by job search engine Jobrapido showed that over a third of employees in the UK plan to leave their current employer because of a lack of ‘vital leader qualities’.

The jobs board TotalJobs also released the results of a survey that showed:

• Just under half (49%) of all UK workers have left a job because of their line manager
• Just 18% of workers (that’s one in five!) said that they could trust their boss
• 39% of managers said they’d never had any kind of management training

There’s clearly a leadership skills gap in the UK. However, that skills gap can only be filled by proven management training courses. And with the range of online courses in management available, not investing in developing leadership skills is a mistake being made by far too many organisations.

We are seeing unprecedented levels of employee churn, and it’s costing businesses in more ways than one. Onboarding and offboarding costs, the recruitment process and the general cost of having an ineffective leadership team and an unmotivated workforce all add up. 

The solution that can counter all of these costs is simple — online courses in management and leadership. Not only will a management training course that teaches emotional intelligence and soft skills ensure that your leaders are equipped for the modern workplace, there are additional benefits. 

When employees see a clear career path and a commitment to their development, they want to stay. They feel more loyal because they’re getting the career progression they’re looking for. And from an organisational perspective, well-developed management training courses ensure that your team gets better at doing their jobs. The result is not just a productivity boost, but also higher staff retention rates and improved employee engagement.

In the summer of 2022, Deloitte and Fortune found that 71% of CEOs anticipate a skills and labour shortage is likely to be 2022’s biggest business disruptor. Workers lacking in essential skills are a real threat to the growth of an organisation. That’s simply unsustainable. Let’s jump into how we can battle this:

While there is an obvious concern about the cost of introducing leadership and management courses into organisational structure, it’s vital to consider the cost of not having those online management courses available.

However, what many business leaders are still overlooking is the apprenticeship levy funding available.

The larger your organisation, the more likely that you're already paying the apprenticeship levy — and that tax isn’t just taken by the government. Instead, it’s put into a pot you can use to upskill your graduates, managers, middle managers and senior leaders. You can learn more about how to use the apprenticeship levy to improve productivity here.

So when you're looking at the cost of introducing a management training course into your employee development plan, don’t forget that the cost could be zero and the benefits are game-changing. Consider the following benefits of a management training course:

• Improved staff engagement that leads to higher rates of retention.
• Attracting talent looking for career development.
• Bridge existing skill gaps to get the best work from your team.
• Outpace and overtake your competitors — your team is more equipped.
• Boost staff morale and confidence.
• Improve team productivity.
• Future-proof your organisation by having more resourceful future learners and managers.
• Reduce staff turnover costs.
• A more knowledgeable team means an increase in customer satisfaction — your workforce knows its stuff and can pass that knowledge on to your target audience.
• Employees on a management training course aren’t learning vague generalisations — they learn practical skills that they can start bringing into the workplace from day one, immediately benefiting your organisation.
• Keep up to date on sector changes at a time when businesses are facing exponential change at a previously unseen pace.

Managers and team leaders today are facing challenges that the leaders of yesterday could never have imagined. Digitisation, automation, and consumer demand have caused huge shifts in how leaders have to lead. Modern leadership styles are more empathetic, compassionate and thoughtful, with a clear focus on work-life balance — not just in the team but in the leaders themselves.

From new ways of thinking to new behaviours, authentic and trustworthy leadership skills are now the priority. That means adopting a management training course that can teach your leaders and future leaders:

• Emotional intelligence
• Effective communication across multiple channels
• Agility in the face of the unexpected
• The ability to not just embrace challenges but learn from them.

Learning and development plans will always benefit everyone in your organisation. From your entry-level grads to your senior leaders and everyone in between, a management training course is now a critical must-have in this ever-changing business landscape.

The Transformational Leadership Programme developed by Future Talent Learning is our 100% online management training course. Through a combination of e-learning, gamification, 1-2-1 virtual coaching, and content from learning partners such as RADA Business, your cohort gets a custom-designed digital masterclass that’s interactive and immersive. 

The Transformational Leadership Programme is the management training course that doesn’t just prepare your leaders for tomorrow but has a real impact on your workplace from today. If you're looking at management development and future-proofing your business, discover how we’ve reimagined learning so that you can more easily upskill the leaders you need, today and in the future.