Jemella Hanson
As we strive to cultivate effective leadership within our organizations, establishing a robust manager training pipeline is essential. We’ve learned through our research that 3 in 4 managers feel responsible for their teams’ wellbeing – and given that managers have the same level of impact on personal wellbeing as a spouse or a therapist (Gallup), it’s imperative that we arm our managers with the tools and skills they need to weather any storm with their direct reports.
Strong managers are invaluable for leading successful, motivated teams, maintaining morale and inspiring innovation. Systematizing a managerial skills training program allows organizations to define what’s important to them, reinforce positive behavior and build a system of protections and accountability that ultimately strengthens the overall health of organizational culture. The better your managers are, the smoother your organization runs, and the better your business results.
In this blog, we’ll explore actionable strategies for creating a training program that empowers managers to lead with confidence and compassion. Let’s dive in.
1. Start with soft skills development
Technical skills are important, but soft skills are the secret sauce that makes a great manager. Empathy, communication and emotional intelligence are key ingredients in the recipe for effective leadership. But soft skills go deeper than those three big concepts – conflict management and mediation, recognition and appreciation, inclusivity, listening and building mutual trust are all in this bucket, too. It also includes developing an understanding of implicit bias, the interaction of power and privilege in the workplace and how to lead with compassion.
Nonetheless, it doesn’t all have to be intense. Presentation skills – both in terms of creation and the requisite public speaking – are increasingly important as employees move up the management ladder. Likewise, resources on your organization’s branding, messaging and values (especially how those elements correlate and work together) are critical to help managers shape the way they bring information to their teams. The more you can weave your organizational values into “the way we do things around here” through systematic manager training programs, the stronger overall culture grows.
2. Mastering time management
Time management is a skill that can make or break a manager. It’s not just about keeping an organized calendar; it’s about prioritizing tasks and making sure that time is spent on what truly matters. And for managers, it’s not just their own calendars and to-do lists they have to manage – it’s also, to an extent, their direct reports’.
All that said – a big part of managerial-level time management includes Big Picture planning – the ability to predict time tables and process development is a skill that must be learned or time crunches and missed deadlines are an inevitability.
Encourage managers to adopt techniques like the Eisenhower Matrix or the Pomodoro Technique. These methods can help them distinguish between what’s urgent and what’s important, ensuring they focus on high-impact activities.
3. Project management: The art of fair task delegation
Let’s dig a little deeper into project management and the delicate dance of task delegation. A successful manager knows that fair task delegation is crucial for team morale and productivity. It’s not just about distributing tasks; it’s about understanding each team member’s strengths and workloads. And we can see in our research that only 50% of managers are already doing this – while 36% of employees are asking for more.
Encourage managers to facilitate schedule and task list transparency among teams. Collaboration tools like Jira, Asana and Monday.com are useful for accountability, visibility and efficiency: if everyone can see what needs to get done, everyone knows how their work fits into the bigger picture and can anticipate their colleagues’ needs more readily. It also helps clarify imbalances in responsibilities or process gaps that were otherwise hidden.
4. Understanding the business and leading strategically
Being a great manager isn’t just about overseeing people, projects and the day-to day operations; its also about connecting the dots between daily tasks and the broader business picture.
Managers hold a unique space between senior leadership and individual contributors, making them a buffer and ideally placed to translate high-level company goals into clear, actionable priorities for their teams. It is essential that they can do this with confidence – especially when explaining the “Why” (Simon Sinek) behind decisions, strategic shifts and most importantly how their team contributes to business success. When managers lead with this clarity, they foster strong alignment, smarter decision making and higher motivation within their teams.
This skill becomes even more important as organizations grow and priorities change. Managers who understand the business context are better prepared to navigate change, identify opportunities and guide their teams to make informed decisions.
To build this capability, managers need an in-depth understanding of the company’s mission and strategic goals – not just what they are, but why they matter. Help them understand how your organization creates value for clients, what success looks like (e.g. revenue, retention, NPS, DEI outcomes), how different departments contribute to shared objectives and how collaboration and communication drive progress. They should also be confident in interpreting key metrics and data and use these to make informed decisions and measure impact.
The more context managers have and share, the more confident they will feel in empowering and leading their teams to success.
5. Continuous feedback and adaptation
Building a manager training program isn’t a one-and-done deal – it’s an ongoing process. Regularly solicit feedback from your managers about what’s working and what could be improved – as well as what skills might be missing or even what needs updating. This not only helps refine your training programs, but also fosters a culture of continuous learning.
Allow managers to also supplement their training program with additional, personalized opportunities as well. Celebrate and reward self-directed learning to encourage all employees to continue to develop their skills and grow in their roles – even grow into new roles at your organization.
Whether your organization does annual employee evaluations or uses a different performance management system, ensure managers are having regular one-on-one checkins with their direct reports. This is not only to establish goals, benchmark progress, offer assistance and extend praise for successes – all important to employee engagement, productivity and morale – but also to solicit employee feedback and suggestions.
6. Model work-life balance and wellbeing
Employees take their managers’ lead when it comes to workplace-appropriate behavior and overall approach. Over one-third of employees say that managers modeling a good work-life balance would improve their overall wellbeing. It might feel weird to consider wellbeing a trainable skill, but navigating stress levels and absences rarely comes naturally. It’s critical that managers take PTO and use sick days (when relevant) to take care of their overall wellbeing – and to encourage their direct reports to do the same. But they must also know how to juggle task responsibilities and timelines among the rest of the team to ensure that to-do lists remain feasible, without letting projects fall apart.
Managers should also know what types of wellbeing resources your organization offers – such as EAP offerings, apps (like Wellbeing+) or partnerships (like Nudge for financial wellbeing or Unmind for mental wellbeing) – to help employees find what they need when they need it and offer assistance they may not have even realized was available.
Creating a manager training pipeline is all about fostering a supportive environment where managers can thrive. By focusing on soft skills, time management, and fair task delegation, we can empower our leaders to inspire their teams and drive success.
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