How to Develop the Next Generation of Managers
Project Goals
Trend Identified
From
To
Continued push toward increased investments in management capability post-pandemic to accommodate hybrid, teams, flatter orgs, etc.
Developing traditional work and people management skills.
Focus on equipping managers with new set of skills required for managing teams, e.g., managing remote work and workforces, creating healthy environments, handling mental health issues, hiring differently, measuring performance differently, etc.
Managers are expected to utilize empathetic leadership to drive project success and catalyze individual career-path success.
Overseeing progress for projects and tasks amongst team members.
Leading with empathy to optimize team project success alongside individual career trajectory.
Prioritize manager wellbeing and longevity in anticipation of their increased workload and responsibilities of managers.
Managers functioning as individual leaders amongst their own teams.
A culture of “reaching and teaching” amongst other managers to continue improving both their hard- and soft-skills.
Development Priorities
Skills
Engagement
Managing
Develop both soft skills and operational expertise, especially in how to work with data.
Invest in building manager empathy.
More guidance and guardrails on building milestones and driving to outcomes.
Assist with longer-term skills and career development.
Enabling managers to create an environment where people are heard and valued…creating psychologically safe environment.
Enabling managers to create a sense of belonging.
Enable managers to have good, honest conversations with their reports.
Being able to manage and develop people in a hybrid environment.
Removing obstacles to performance and building muscle and empowering employees to make data-driven decisions versus being told.
Current Actions
Content
Format
Supporting Mechanisms
Implement concept of leaders teaching leaders…classes taught and facilitated by leaders (internal and external) so not just theory but practical tips based on personal experiences.
Utilize a mix of internal and external courses depending on level and potential of the manager.
Utilize highly structured group/cohort driven programs with elements of peer coaching / peer sharing and coaching circles
Facilitated and highly structured cohort experiential programs.
Structure development into bite sized and on-demand learning
Provide 1:1 support for managers
Roll out of range of available tools to enable managers to do their job more effectively
Increased career coaching
Institute regular briefings
Future Actions
Re-imagining the Manager Role
Is this a one-person job going forward? Are people and non-people managers becoming fundamentally different roles?
Revisiting the meaning of leadership
The post-pandemic world is shifting the skills required for effective leadership, and that must be incorporated into how we develop our managers.
A distributed leadership model
Per MIT Sloan…”The future of work requires nimble leadership”…and that requires managers to work in new and more empowered ways
Consider the role of AI in development
AI already being successfully combined with human intuition to fuel performance management and feedback processes at some leading organizations