How to Fix the Lack of Leadership Skills in Your Managers

Does your management team lack leadership skills? Poor leadership causes as much as 32 percent of an organization’s involuntary turnover. Most front-line managers in leadership roles lack critical skills, and that is hurting your business. They don’t know how to talk to their employees, nor do they know how to listen. More often than not, middle managers have not received any formal management training. When they receive leadership training, it focuses on delegating, holding employees accountable, and evaluating people.

Additionally, many front-line managers are promoted based on their technical skills rather than their leadership potential. The skills that made them successful individual contributors caused them to fail as leaders. When successful contributors promote to a leadership role, their success is no longer determined by their contribution. Instead, their success depends on the success of their direct reports.

Signs your front-line managers have a leadership skills gap

• Communication issues
• Unaddressed team conflict
• Difficult employees
• Resistance to change
• Low employee morale
• High turnover
• Lack of accountability
• Low motivation
• Poor relationships
• Attitude or behavioral problems among employees
• The leader is a bully
• The leader plays favorites

If a supervisor or front-line manager is experiencing the above issues within their team, it is a sign they lack the necessary leadership skills to be effective in their role. Often, these managers struggle to get their teams to become high-performers. When leaders lack leadership skills, they frequently point their fingers at individual team members as the cause of the issues. However, the real reason is their inability to lead, coach, develop, and hold others accountable. Simply put, they cannot get their team members to do their jobs.

How does a lack of leadership skills harm your organization?

The impact of middle managers who lacks leadership skills is endless and affects all areas of your business. They hurt productivity, which causes lower profits. Further, it hurts retention, which increases recruitment and training costs. Even more, having front-line managers who lack leadership skills damages your brand, impacting your ability to attract new clients and recruit top performers.

• Decreased productivity
• Reduced revenue and profit
• Turnover
• Employees give up but don’t quit
• Increased errors, mistakes, and lack of quality
• Disengaged employees
• Wasted time and missed opportunities
• Departmental conflicts

How do you create a leadership development program to solve the leadership skills gap?

Creating a robust and sticky leadership development program requires an assessment of your managers and proper planning. Add the following critical tasks to your leadership development project plan:

• Identify the skills needed across your organization by job function
• Assess existing skill levels to the necessary skills needed to be successful
• Evaluate approaches to leadership development in tight alignment with the organization’s strategic plan
• Identify training opportunities and participants
• Create individual leadership development plans
• Align program objectives to employee interests and organizational needs

Leadership development programs aren’t one-and-done activities. As a result, the leadership skills needed will evolve over time and as strategic initiatives changes. Therefore, you should review and revise leadership development plans as necessary.

What kind of content is included in a leadership development program?

Promoting an employee will require leadership development. However, employees brought in laterally also need ongoing training for long-term success. Lack of leadership skills across all levels causes poor decision-making and gaps in communication.

Leaders need a wide variety of leadership and management skills, communication, technology, and overall business acumen. Additionally, they need a solid understanding of your organization’s structure, business functions, and industry. Further, depending on where they are in their career, they need to be familiar with finance, marketing, and operations regardless of their particular role. Lastly, they need a clear understanding of the company culture, policies, and procedures.

Leadership development training addresses knowledge and skills. Every employee brings some level of knowledge, skills, and abilities. So your leadership development program should build upon the knowledge and skills they already possess.

Leadership development knowledge-skills-based training

To improve the lack of leadership skills in your organization, managers need to understand a wealth of knowledge and business concepts internal to the organization and external. As a result, both should be addressed in your leadership development training.

Internal knowledge-based leadership skills

• Business model and how the company makes money
• Processes and product offerings
• Revenue, expenses, margins, profits, customers, and growth strategies
• Finance, marketing, sales, operations, strategy, analysis of financial statements

External knowledge-based leadership skills

• Employment laws
• Theories of people management
• Process improvement techniques
• Industry and market trends
• Managing change
• Succession planning

Leadership skills-based training

Improve your success rate of achieving your strategic objectives by making your skills-based training more robust. A lack of leadership skills in the following areas creates a steady flow of distractions. As a result, your organization delivers poor outcomes. Therefore, ensure to offer front-line managers training opportunities in these areas.

• Recruitment, including interviewing and selection
• Inclusive leadership and influence
• Conflict management
• Performance management
• Work scheduling and planning
• Time management
• Problem-solving
• Negotiation techniques
• Decision making
• Team-building
• Written and verbal communication
• Presentation creation and delivery
• Project management

Leadership development needs to be a priority for every organization. It needs to be budgeted, formal, consistent, and ongoing. Leaders face new challenges every day. Disruption, digital transformation, employee activism, and competition are accelerating. Therefore, leaders must embrace leadership development for themselves, their employees, and their organization. Organizations that invest in good talented people, appreciate the internal talent pool, and inspire employees to learn will have a competitive advantage. Above all, leaders need to be completely open to giving and receiving feedback.

Furthermore, employees who regularly engage with their leaders build a deeper relationship. As a result of the deeper connection, they create a more agile and innovative workplace. In short, you fix your middle managers’ lack of leadership skills by providing a robust leadership development training program. Even more, ensure the program objectives align with both the employee’s interests and the organizational needs.

Last updated on November 16th, 2022 at 07:26 am