Why Do We Wait Until Managers Are Struggling to Help Them?

The warning signs are familiar

I’ve met managers who are working late, picking up tasks their team should own and replaying difficult conversations on the drive home. They’re still delivering, so from a distance everything looks fine.

By the time someone suggests development, they’re often exhausted.

What strikes me is how predictable this can be. We promote someone because they’re brilliant at their job, give them a team and assume they’ll work out the people side as they go. They usually do work something out. Often, it involves doing far too much themselves.

The job changed overnight

One day, being the person with the answers is a strength. The next, their job is to set direction, delegate, give feedback and help other people find answers. That’s a big change, particularly when some of those people were their peers last week.

Yet management development is sometimes treated as a remedy. A manager gets a course when performance drops, a team complains or they finally admit they’re struggling.

I’ve seen how much easier those conversations are when managers have support earlier. They can talk through a challenge before it becomes a crisis. They can practise a difficult conversation before they need to have it. They can learn to delegate while they still have the energy to resist taking everything back.

Give them a chance to grow into it

That thinking shaped The Shift. I created it to give managers practical skills, useful tools and the space to examine how they show up in the role. Just as importantly, it gives them a chance to apply what they learn between sessions.

Managers don’t need us to wait until they’re overwhelmed before we take their development seriously.

What might change if we supported them from the moment they stepped into the job?

Contact me today matt@twentyoneleadership.com