Bosses Need Training And Lots Of Support

In March, CareerBuilder released the results of a survey of 3910 US workers. Here's the lead from the news release.

"According to a new CareerBuilder survey, more than one-quarter (26 percent) of managers said they weren't ready to become a leader when they started managing others."

Yikes. I'm not sure you can ever be fully prepared for the transition from individual contributor to boss. It's more like a career change than a job change. But there are things we can do to reduce the proportion of the unprepared.

Start by giving those who are interested in making the move a realistic idea of what the boss's job includes. Job shadowing is a start. If they're still interested give the person an opportunity to try on the role, but provide them with support in the form of a mentor, trainer, or a more experienced manager.

That will give the person an idea of whether the actual work of being a boss is for them. It will give the people who make selection of new bosses some evidence to use in making their choices so they can move beyond guess work.

Being a boss is an apprentice trade. Most of the learning will come on the job. Training can help structure the learning and mentors can make it more effective. But according to CareerBuilder there's very little training going on.

"Fifty-eight percent said they didn't receive any management training."

That's NO training. Zero training. None. That's a scandal.

For heaven's sake, we train newly hired janitors and gate guards. You need training to be a cosmetologist. But more than half the people in first line management get NO training!?

Get this straight. Managers need training. First line managers are the people in your company most responsible for both morale and productivity. It only makes sense to help them do a good job.

Leadership at any level is an apprentice trade. You learn most of it on the job. You learn faster and better if you have a more seasoned manager to guide you and if you encourage feedback and use it.

Even so, it takes a while to get the basics right. In my experience, the transition from individual contributor to a boss who is competent in the basics of the job takes more than a year. If you want to master the job, count on at least a decade of purposeful work.

It's not over then. You're never done learning and developing. Training and development opportunities remain important, and peer support groups can make all managers better.

Boss's Bottom Line

One of the most exciting things about your job is that there's always more to learn, plus you get to help other people succeed.

Hat Tip: Thanks to Sharlyn Lauby whose excellent post "Do The Job, Get The Job, Get Trained" at HR Bartender inspired this post.

Thanks to Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Blog
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2011/05/17/bosses-need-training-and-lots-of-support.aspx