82% Of Managers Are Accidental Managers!

Are you one of them?

Welcome!

Hi this is John with this week’s Developing Skills - Skills for Developers looking to develop their careers.

If there is a topic you’d like to see covered, please let me know by replying to this email📧

Tip of The Week: Don’t Be An Accidental Manager!

82% of managers have had no formal training!

These managers are known as ‘accidental managers’. They no formal leadership training and it shows!

Accidental managers directly contribute to almost a third of their staff leaving their role. That’s no surprise given only 27% of employees consider their manager to be effective.

It’s not great for the managers either. Many of them are not confident about their leadership abilities and most of them feel strongly that they need for more training and development to be effective.

I’m one of the “lucky” 18% of managers who have been given formal training and it hasn’t helped!

Why? Because all the formal training I received from organisation’s was focused on how to handle poor performance, ensuring managers had a clear understanding of the formal process of conducting a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).

I hated that! I wanted to learn how to recruit and build a high performing team! I wanted to know:

1. How to write an effective job specification so I attract good candidates and avoid bias.

2. How to interview effectively.

3. How to onboard staff effectively.

4. How to ensure the culture in my team sets them up for success.

5. How to create psychological safety within the team.

6. How to run an effective one-to-one.

7. What leadership style should I use and when.

8. How to get my team to take on difficult challenges.

9. How to appreciate my team and my colleagues.

10. How to up-skill my team.

11. When should I use teaching, mentoring or coaching to up-skill them.

12. How to effectively mentor.

13. How to coach effectively.

14. How to communicate effectively.

15. How to talk to non-technical people and get their agreement.

16. How to deliver difficult news to people.

17. How to deliver feedback effectively.

18. How to manage conflict.

19. How to tell people they are wrong without offending them.

20. How to network effectively within the organisation.

21. How to influence effectively and how to influence without authority.

22. Stakeholder management.

23. How to get buy-in from my boss and their boss.

24. Goal setting and OKRs.

25. Project and programme management.

26. How to make better decisions.

27. How to build a technical roadmap.

If you’re a software engineering manager, does this reflect your experience?

I’d really love to know! Please either hit reply and tell me about your experience. If you’d prefer to be anonymous I’ve put together a short (four questions) anonymous survey you can fill in.

Many thanks, John

Three Ways I Can Help You Level Up As A Software Engineer:

1. I write another newsletter, Coding Challenges that helps you become a better software engineer through coding challenges that build real applications.

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3. I have some courses available:

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