Is your best expert your poorest manager? IT’S NOT THEIR FAULT.
When I arrived at my first fire station I was bright eyed and keen to be the best I could be. I wasn’t a manager and had little idea how managing people worked.
As I moved between fire stations, I noticed something. Every manager was technically brilliant at resolving incidents. But incidents were a small part of our time. Most of it was training, community engagement and prevention work. What began to dawn on me was that a lot of how I felt about work depended on how that manager treated me.
Where I felt valued, managers went out of their way to help me develop, took an interest in me as a person and treated my mistakes as opportunities to learn. I saw my work as part of something bigger than myself. I tried harder and shared ideas—I went above and beyond. With other managers, I still did the tasks, but I was less motivated, stopped offering ideas and took less pride in my work, my focus became clouded.
I didn’t have the language for it at the time. I just knew that working for different managers changed how I felt about work and how I approached it. What I know now is that the difference in those managers wasn’t technical ability. It was their people skills.
It isn’t just my story
In 2023, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and YouGov surveyed more than 4,500 UK managers and workers…
Feeling valued: 72% of workers with an effective manager felt valued and respected, compared with just 15% of those with an ineffective manager.
Planning to leave: half of those with an ineffective manager planned to leave within a year, compared with 21% of those with an effective manager.
Already left: 28% had already left a job because of a negative relationship with their manager.
How good experts become ineffective managers
Someone is brilliant at their craft—the engineer who solves what nobody else can, the clinician colleagues turn to. So, when a team lead role opens up, they’re the obvious choice.
The CMI found that 82% of newly recruited managers had no formal management or leadership training and pointed to technical competence being valued over behaviours when deciding who is ready to lead.
The job changes, but the support rarely does. As an expert, your value is what you know. As a leader, it comes through other people—honest conversations, useful feedback, clear expectations. These aren’t soft skills. They’re some of the hardest a leader uses.
The manager is often the last to know
It’s usually the HR Business Partner who hears the same concern multiple times, or the L&D or OD lead who spots a pattern in one team’s engagement results. The manager may see it differently—62% of workers put empathy and understanding near the top of what makes a good manager, but only 46% of managers did.
Why generic training falls short
A management course or e-learning sometimes works, but with expert-led teams it often doesn’t. It can feel remedial, abstract and disconnected from their real situation, and a one-off event rarely sticks.
What works – 5 tips
People skills can be learned. How they’re taught is what matters:
Frame it as an extension of their expertise, not a correction.
Work on real situations, like the conversation they’re avoiding.
Give them a safe place to practise and get feedback.
Involve their manager, peers and team.
Follow up over weeks and months, not a single day.
Where to start
If you are seeing the warning signs of ineffective management consider these questions…
Where are people leaving, and what do exit interviews say about the manager?
Which teams have engagement that doesn’t match their performance?
How many newly promoted experts have had real support?
How we can help
We help technically strong managers become confident people leaders. Our work is practical, grounded in real challenges, and designed to change behaviour that lasts. Seeing this pattern? Let’s talk.
Source: CMI and YouGov, “Taking Responsibility: Why UK PLC Needs Better Managers” (2023).