Employees are actively seeking career growth — but managers are not given the space or tools to assist with that development, leading to a lack of learning across the board, according to research published July 14 by the American Management Association.
Managers are one of the lynchpins of worker development, but they are also often promoted into such roles without any formal training on leadership, AMA said. And while the majority of employees surveyed said they feel confident about their future advancement opportunities, a lack of manager support could threaten business growth overall.
“Managers are often the link between employee potential and organizational performance,” Manny Avramidis, president and CEO of AMA, said in a statement. “When organizations prepare managers to develop people effectively, they strengthen both individual growth and business outcomes.”
Notably, less than a third of the 1,000 professionals surveyed said their managers were “highly effective,” while two-thirds said they did not receive frequent support. And only 30% of respondents said they “have enough opportunities to develop new skills.”
“Talent development can’t sit outside the daily work experience. It needs to be reinforced by managers through communication and practical application,” Avramidis said.
But managers, especially, may struggle to find the time for development, according to an Association for Talent Development report released in September 2025. Many also said that being a manager is more difficult than they anticipated, emphasizing the need for support from employers.
Closing skills gaps more broadly remains a big organizational priority, a Deloitte report released in March 2025 said, but to do so, employers may need to reinvent the manager role entirely so that managers can focus more on developing their team members, the report said.