by Paul Buller
As an organization, identifying your managers’ skills gaps is tricky – and identifying your own skills gaps as a manager can be even harder. Ideally, organization and manager should work in harmony, enabling enquiry and reflection in equal measure. The focus should be on outcomes that are realistic, achievable and beneficial to both parties.
In the real world, that’s some ask. HR departments are scrambling to keep up with their ever-evolving organizational demands and managers are busy holding everything together. Time to identify skills gaps is scarce.
I’m a Manager – Now What Do I Do?
I’ve been a manager since my early twenties and, probably like most managers reading this, I had no real clue what managing was all about, or even why I was chosen to manage people. It was at least ten years before I realized that managers could get some training (apologies to all those I managed in those intervening years). It turned out that wits, luck, naivety (or wilful ignorance), and sporadic arrogance could only get you so far.
Managing people was becoming more and more stressful. “Surely it should be getting easier by now?” was the question that would wake me at 3 a.m. most mornings. But it wasn’t and I didn’t know what to do.
The Keys: Reflection and Learning
Then I got lucky. Circumstances paired me with a new colleague who was becoming an expert in leadership coaching, and suddenly the door to self-reflection was opened. My own manager was kind enough to empower me to learn more about myself as a manager – and a person – and identify my skills gaps. I learned that’s it’s OK to not always have all the answers. That it’s OK to need to know new things. Since then I’ve not stopped learning.
But as I said, I got lucky. Most managers don’t chance upon a leadership coach in their hour of need. So what do we do?
Building Better Managers
At Mindtools we love this kind of challenge, and there’s no better way to find solutions than getting out there and speaking to managers. Lots of them.
Our expert Insights team partnered with YouGov and surveyed 2,001 managers across 12 industry sectors in the U.K., resulting in our Building Better Managers Report. We use this kind of research to inform everything we do at Mindtools; our content and our products are all backed by behavioral science. Identifying skills gaps was high on the agenda – here’s what we found, and how Mindtools can help.
Challenges Businesses Face When They Don’t Know Their Managers’ Skill Levels
- Promotion based on technical skills, not people skills’
- 80 percent of managers said they were promoted due to job performance, not because they wanted to manage people.
- This leads to a mismatch between role expectations and actual capabilities.
- Lack of support during transition to management’
- 50 percent of managers received no formal support or training when they became managers.
- This results in underprepared leaders who struggle with core responsibilities.
- Unclear expectations and skill priorities
- 86 percent believe they know what skills they need, but interviews reveal that they struggle to articulate what good management looks like.
- This ambiguity hinders focused development and performance improvement.
- Overwhelmed and underdeveloped managers
- Many managers feel too stretched to prioritize their own learning.
- Without time or clarity, development stalls.
If this sounds familiar, then take comfort in knowing you’re not alone. The good news is that the report not only identified many benefits to identifying skills gaps, but also gave us some great insight into how best we can help you.
The Benefits of Identifying Skills Gaps and Establishing Benchmarks
- Clarity and direction for development
- Managers want to know their strengths and weaknesses to improve effectively.
- Top requests include: discovering areas for improvement, understanding organizational expectations, and acquiring essential skills.
- Improved learning ROI and L&D impact
- Benchmarking enables organizations to measure progress and prove the value of L&D investments.
- It supports targeted interventions that align with business goals.
- Retention and engagement
- 64 percent of managers would leave if denied learning opportunities – rising to 80 percent for those under 35.
- Development is a key driver of retention and engagement.
“Good managers aren’t born – they’re built.” That’s the key takeaway from our report. We in the workplace are learning more all the time about management. We’re seeing how it’s evolving from “Do as I say” into a culture where listening and psychological safety are vital to happy, productive teams and successful businesses. In that context, understanding where your managers’ skills gaps lie can only be a good thing.
Yes, it’s very easy for me to write that. The evidence is clear. But if you’re like me or your organisation is like many I’ve worked at, finding the time to conduct a thorough skills gap analysis seems virtually impossible – and panic-inducing. And although I’ve only worked at Mindtools for three months, this is why I love working here: my colleagues took the research and created some great time-saving tools to help identify and develop managers’ skills gaps. This isn’t what they thought managers wanted. It’s what managers told them they wanted.
Mindtools empowers organizations to build better managers by diagnosing skill gaps, delivering personalized learning, and proving the impact of development initiatives.
How Mindtools Can Help
Mindtools offers a suite of evidence-based tools and platforms to address these challenges:
- Manager Skills Assessment (MSA)
A diagnostic tool that helps managers identify their strengths and development areas across 12 essential skills. Explore the MSA.
- Manager Skill Builder (MSB)
An adaptive learning platform that delivers personalized, data-driven development journeys. Read about the MSB.
- M: Suite
A comprehensive solution for organizations to diagnose, accelerate and evolve managerial capability. Visit Mindtools for Organizations.
- Thought Leadership and Research
Mindtools collaborates with experts to produce actionable insights and practical tools grounded in research. View our latest research report.
Unsure where to start? Book a meeting with one of our experts who will talk through your organization’s specific learning challenges.
