Leader and manager development is a top priority for HR leaders, according to an Oct. 15 Gartner analysis, with many noting that their leaders and managers “are not equipped to lead change.”
Three-quarters of HR leaders surveyed earlier this year said managers are overwhelmed by their responsibilities. “For organizations to deliver on their goals, managers must be prepared to successfully lead both today and tomorrow,” Mark Whittle, vice president of advisory in the Gartner HR practice, said in a statement. “Though 75% of organizations have made significant updates to their leadership development programs, and more than half are increasing spending on leader development, they are not seeing results.”
Notably, Gartner said that traditional leadership development — seminars, lectures and more traditional learning programming — has “a negative effect” on development.
And manager competency matters for another key HR priority: building culture, Gartner said. More than half of HR leaders surveyed previously said their managers fail to enforce the culture organizations want on their teams.
The key may lie in peer learning, according to Gartner, including networking and team building.
Other studies and experts have also pushed the importance of coaching, especially for budding managers. Behavior-based coaching can help managers figure out what they need to do to succeed, Michelle Dix, senior vice president of human capital consulting at Hub International, previously wrote for HR Dive.
Coaching may fall short of expectations, however — especially if leaders are not encouraged to build coaching skills, a DDI report from July noted.