Think about everything you expect from your managers today. You probably want them to deliver results, manage performance, motivate their teams, give good feedback, have difficult conversations, develop people, support wellbeing and lead through change. They may also be navigating hybrid working, collaborating across teams, introducing new technology and helping their people adapt to whatever comes next.
And most of them are doing all of this alongside the operational demands of the
It’s a lot to ask, and the role of the manager has become increasingly complex. The question is whether the way we prepare and develop managers has kept up with everything we now expect them to do.
When it hasn’t, you end up with what we call the Manager Development Gap: the gap between what your organisation needs its managers to be capable of and the development they’ve had to help them get there.
How Does the Manager Development Gap Happen?
For new managers, it often starts with the way people get promoted. Someone is good at their job, they’re seen as capable and reliable, and the natural next step is to give them responsibility for managing other people.
But being good at your own job doesn’t automatically prepare you for managing someone else.
Suddenly, you need to be able to delegate rather than do everything yourself, set clear expectations, give feedback, deal with poor performance, motivate different people, manage conflict and help others develop. You also need to work out how to get results through your team rather than relying mainly on your own contribution.
These are skills that need to be learned and practised, but plenty of new managers are still left to work much of this out for themselves. They learn through experience, copy managers they’ve worked for in the past and develop their own way of doing things as they go.
The Manager Development Gap can look slightly different for experienced managers. Someone may have been managing people for five, ten or even twenty years, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve had five, ten or twenty years of meaningful development. They may have attended a management course years ago, picked up bits of training along the way, or simply become very experienced at managing in the way they’ve always managed.
In the meantime, the organisation has changed, the people they manage have changed and what we expect from managers has changed too.
Why Experience Alone Isn’t Always Enough
Experience is hugely valuable. Experienced managers have context and judgement, and they’ve had years to see what works, what doesn’t and how different people respond.
But we all develop habits and tend to become more comfortable with some parts of our role than others.
You might have a manager who is brilliant at getting results but avoids difficult performance conversations. Someone else might build great relationships with their team but struggle to delegate, so they end up doing far too much themselves. Another might be very effective when things are stable but find it much harder to lead their team when there is uncertainty or significant change.
That doesn’t make them bad managers. It just means there are areas of their management practice that could be stronger.
This is why I think it’s important to look at manager development as something that continues throughout someone’s career. A manager with ten years’ experience obviously doesn’t need the same development as someone managing people for the first time, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing left for them to learn, practise or improve.
What Does the Manager Development Gap Look Like?
One of the difficulties is that a Manager Development Gap doesn’t necessarily show up as one obvious problem. More often, you see it in the inconsistencies across the organisation.
- One team has regular, useful 1:1s while another rarely has them.
- Some managers deal with performance issues early, while others let them drift.
- Some are good at delegating and developing their people, while others hold onto too much themselves.
- Some communicate change well and help their teams make sense of it, while others simply pass information on.
- HR or senior leaders repeatedly get involved in situations managers should be equipped to deal with themselves.
The result is that people can have very different experiences of working for the same organisation depending on who manages them.
Any one of these things might seem fairly minor. When they happen across lots of teams, however, they start to affect performance, engagement, retention and how successfully you can make change happen.
How Big Is Your Manager Development Gap?
If any of this sounds familiar, a good place to start is to get clear on what you actually need your managers to be capable of:
- What do you expect managers to take ownership of?
- What skills and behaviours do they need to do that well?
- Where are your managers already strong, and where do you see inconsistencies?
- What do managers themselves find difficult?
- Are new managers properly prepared for the transition into management?
- What development are experienced managers getting?
- Where do HR and senior leaders find themselves stepping in most often?
- What will your managers need to be able to do in the next few years that perhaps isn’t as important today?
Once you understand that, you can start to see where the gaps really are and make much better decisions about where to invest in development.
Manager Development Needs to Keep Moving
At Willow & Puddifoot, we see leadership as a craft. It’s something people learn and refine over time through experience, feedback, reflection, practice and development.
The same is true of management. The skills someone needs when they first become a manager aren’t exactly the same as those they’ll need several years later, particularly as their team, organisation and working environment change.
So when you’re thinking about your managers, it’s worth looking beyond whether they’ve had management training at some point in their career.
Think instead about what you need your managers to be able to do now, what you’ll need from them in the future and whether they’ve had the opportunity to develop those capabilities.
If there’s a gap between what you’re asking of them and what you’ve equipped them to do, that’s your Manager Development Gap.
At Willow & Puddifoot, we work with organisations to develop confident, capable managers at every stage of their careers. If you’re thinking about how well equipped your managers are for what you need from them now and in the future, please feel free to get in touch. We’d be happy to talk it through with you.
About the Author
Louise Puddifoot is the founder of Willow & Puddifoot, where she and her team CRAFT™ confident, capable leaders at every stage. With over 20 years’ experience in leadership and learning, Louise designs practical development that builds confidence, capability, and impact. Her work is built on the CRAFT™ Leadership Framework, focusing on communication, resilience, authenticity, future focus, and transformation, to create real behaviour change that lasts.