My experience is that managers (often) feel ill-equipped to be able to support the learning growth and development of all their people. Sometimes, struggling with their own feelings of inadequacy, which can show up in, for example, the form of imposter syndrome and sometimes feeling inadequate because they did not have the benefit of seeing development modelled for them by their line manager and therefore despite wanting to develop others, they simply don’t know how to.
The manager population tend to be the most under-resourced and under-invested-in cohort in the business. The number of managers I encounter who ‘make it up as they go along’ is concerning. At a minimum, managers must be helped to understand why inclusion matters; how to delegate; how to coach; how to have difficult conversations; how to manage change; how to give feedback and how to manage teams; how to manage conflict; how to manage up and how to carry-out mid-year and end-of-year reviews. This is a necessary investment for any organisation, seeking to get more from more of their people, more of the time.
Organisations know that it is their leader-manager population who are the engine that drives the culture. Knowing this, inclusive organisations strategically and systematically invest in their enablement to ensure that they, the managers are fuelled to make sure the business is powered by inclusion.
The leader-manager role can look different in different organisations. In some, they are expected to give up their individual production target/responsibility and are measured against the results of their team. For these managers the transition is from producer to leader-manager. (Model A). For others the leader-manager adds rather than sheds responsibility. They are still expected to produce whilst adding the leader-manager function to their list of responsibilities (Model B).
In Model A the manager needs to be a Mentor, whilst in Model B the key feature of their role is to model the organisational values, behaviours and best-practice.
