We Are Setting Our Managers Up to Fail

We promote people for the wrong reasons, fail to teach them the skills they actually need, and then blame them when things go wrong. In the age of AI, this isn't just poor leadership, it's becoming an expensive commercial mistake. The evidence suggests the problem isn't our managers. It's the system we've built around them.

Why Do So Many New Managers Fail?

The answer is surprisingly simple. Most managers aren't failing because they lack potential. They're failing because organisations consistently set them up to fail. It happens in the same three stages, time and time again:

1. We promote the wrong people.

2. We don't train them.

3. We blame them when performance suffers.

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It's not a talent problem. It's a systems problem.

Step One: Are We Promoting the Wrong People?

Many organisations reward their highest-performing individual contributors with management roles.

The best salesperson becomes Sales Manager.

The strongest engineer becomes Head of Engineering.

The top consultant becomes Team Leader.

The assumption is obvious: if someone excels at doing the work, they'll naturally excel at leading others to do it.

Research says otherwise.

One of the largest studies of workplace promotions, conducted by economists Alan Benson, Danielle Li and Kelly Shue, followed tens of thousands of sales professionals across more than 130 companies. They found that organisations consistently promoted their strongest salespeople—and that many became significantly less effective managers. In fact, when exceptional salespeople were promoted, the performance of their teams fell by around 10%. This is classic evidence of the Peter Principle: people are promoted until they reach a role requiring entirely different capabilities.

The problem isn't that they're untalented. It's that we promoted them for the wrong talent.

Gallup's research reinforces this finding. It estimates that only around one in ten people naturally possess the instincts required to become highly effective managers. Interestingly, one of the strongest predictors of successful management isn't technical brilliance—it's collaboration.

Unfortunately, that's rarely what organisations measure when making promotion decisions.

As organisational psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic argues, AI is only making this problem more significant. As technology increasingly supports technical expertise, leadership becomes less about individual performance and more about guiding people through uncertainty and change.

Step Two: Why Aren't We Teaching Managers How to Lead?

This is where the system becomes even harder to defend. After promoting someone into one of the most influential roles in the organisation, we often provide almost no formal preparation. Research from Zenger Folkman found that the average employee becomes a manager at around 30 years old, yet doesn't receive meaningful leadership training until approximately 42.

That's twelve years of learning through trial and error.

Twelve years of practising on other people's careers.

It's hardly surprising that DDI found 87% of first-time managers wished they'd received better preparation before stepping into leadership.

No other profession would accept this approach.

We wouldn't hand someone the controls of an aircraft and expect them to "learn as they go."

Yet we routinely do exactly that with management—the role that has the greatest day-to-day influence on people's working lives.

Step Three: Why Do We Blame the Manager?

When productivity falls or engagement declines, organisations often focus on the individual manager rather than the system surrounding them.

The response becomes familiar:

• Restructure.

• Streamline.

• Replace the manager.

• Start again.

Rarely do organisations stop to ask whether they ever gave that person the skills, support and development needed to succeed.

We created the conditions.

Then blamed the individual for struggling within them.

Why Is This a Commercial Issue Rather Than a People Issue?

Leadership development is often one of the first budgets reduced during difficult economic periods.

That decision may feel financially sensible. The evidence suggests the opposite. Gallup's analysis of millions of employees found that managers account for at least 70% of the variation in team. engagement.

Not salary.

Not benefits.

Not office design.

The manager.

And engagement isn't simply about happiness.

It directly influences:

• Productivity.

• Profitability.

• Retention.

• Wellbeing.

• Customer outcomes.

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Organisations don't save money by underinvesting in managers. They quietly weaken one of the strongest drivers of business performance. The encouraging news is that this can be changed.

Gallup found that while approximately one in ten people have exceptional natural management talent, another two in ten possess the underlying capability to become excellent leaders—with the right development. That's an enormous opportunity many organisations overlook.

What Should We Actually Be Training Managers To Do?

As AI becomes increasingly capable of handling routine tasks, leadership becomes even more human.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Dorie Clark argue that AI isn't fundamentally a technology challenge.

It's a leadership challenge.

The organisations that succeed won't simply implement better software.

They'll develop leaders who excel at the things technology cannot replicate.

The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 identifies many of these capabilities as among the fastest-growing skills in business.

These include:

• Active listening.

• Empathy.

• Critical thinking.

• Social influence.

• Adaptability.

• Conflict resolution.

• Responsible use of AI.

• Motivating and developing others.

These aren't soft skills. They're increasingly becoming the hardest—and most commercially valuable—skills organisations possess.

Why Is the Transition Into Leadership So Difficult?

Moving from high-performing individual contributor to effective leader is one of the most significant career transitions anyone makes. The job fundamentally changes. Success is no longer measured by your own output. It's measured by the success of everyone around you. That's why so much of our coaching work focuses on helping newly promoted leaders make this shift. Not because they're failing.

Because nobody ever showed them how different leadership really is. The good news is that organisations don't have to rely on guesswork. They can assess leadership potential before promotion.

They can invest in developing new managers early. And they can dramatically improve the chances that talented people succeed rather than struggle.

Why This Matters Even More in the AI Era

AI isn't replacing leadership. It's changing what leadership requires. Technical expertise is becoming easier to access. Judgement, empathy, adaptability and the ability to help people navigate constant change are becoming more valuable than ever. Even senior leadership roles won't remain untouched.

The leaders who thrive won't simply be those who understand AI. They'll be those who invest in developing the uniquely human capabilities that AI cannot replace.

We Don't Have a Talent Problem

Perhaps that's the most important conclusion of all. We don't have a shortage of capable managers.

We have a shortage of organisations that prepare managers properly. We can continue promoting outstanding individuals into leadership roles without assessing their potential, offering little training and blaming them when they struggle. Or we can build systems that help good people become exceptional leaders. One approach breaks people. The other builds organisations. The choice feels surprisingly obvious.

Key Takeaways

• Most managers don't fail because they lack talent—they fail because organisations promote them for the wrong reasons and don't prepare them for leadership.

• Great individual performance doesn't automatically translate into great management. Leadership requires a completely different set of skills.

• Investing in leadership development isn't a people initiative—it's a commercial strategy. Managers have one of the greatest influences on engagement, retention and business performance.

• As AI automates more technical work, human leadership skills become even more valuable. Empathy, judgement, adaptability and communication are becoming key competitive advantages.

• The organisations that succeed won't simply hire better managers—they'll build better systems for identifying, developing and supporting them.

Sarah Jane Last