INSIGHTS
The lost leaders: Are organizations failing their first-line managers?

First-line managers are essential to the retail and hospitality sectors, but the majority of businesses are still overlooking them when it comes to their learning and development strategies. Failing to provide the right training at the right time is causing an epidemic of lost leaders leaving the industry. So what can we do about it?

As a Senior Business Development Director at Attensi, I spend a lot of my time talking to business leaders in the retail and hospitality sectors. In my experience, no matter how unique a business thinks its challenges are, they tend to be part of a trend across the industry.

The latest trend I’ve noticed is the challenge of skills gaps in first-line management roles. Businesses need first-line managers to have it all – practical knowledge of the company, people management, communication, organization, and problem-solving. They want them to be hands-on on the front line while juggling additional responsibilities, usually with no prior management experience. Then they wonder why they’re not succeeding.

Let’s have a closer look at the hectic life of a first-line manager and what businesses can do to help them fulfill their potential.

Who are the first-line managers?

When I talk about first-line managers, I mean the ones taking their first steps into leadership roles. They’ve likely gone from a member of the frontline team to a slightly higher position – still not middle management but with more responsibilities than they had before. There are various titles that fit this role, usually along the lines of ‘team lead’, ‘supervisor’, or ‘deputy general manager’.

Being promoted into one of these first-line management positions is essentially a half step up between a member of the team and fully-fledged management, but it’s an essential role in an organization. First-line managers are directly responsible for the vast majority of the workforce (estimates range from two-thirds¹ to 80%) and makeup 60%² of a company’s leadership roles on average.

The challenges of first-line management

Having all this responsibility so early in the journey to management definitely comes with challenges, from navigating the move from peer to manager to finding the balance in a high-pressure role.

1. Managing relationships

First-line managers tend to be promoted from within the team rather than hired from outside an organization, so the peers they once vented to and shared inside work jokes with suddenly become their responsibility to manage.

As anyone who’s ever had to make this move knows, it’s a delicate balance. You need to keep the positive aspects of your relationships but also make sure your team takes you seriously. You need to support and manage your team while thinking about the wider context of the company and its goals.

It’s vital that first-line managers get this step right to be able to successfully lead and manage their team.

2. Spinning plates

Arguably, the role of a first-line manager is one of the most difficult in the whole business. Even if they’re not officially line-managing people and delivering performance reviews, they’re directly managing the team every day to get the most out of them. They’re also organizing work schedules, overseeing the shop floor, serving customers, resolving conflicts, leading stock takes… the list goes on.

The joint expectation of being hands-on on the shop floor while juggling a ton of admin tasks is a challenge not for the faint of heart, and one that’s fairly unique to first-line management roles. Without the right support, first-line managers can find themselves dealing with avoidable burnout.

3. Lack of proper training

The challenges that come with a step up into first-line management are absolutely manageable – if you have the right training and support. But sadly, there’s currently a sizeable gap between the training first-line managers need and what they actually get.

New staff get onboarding training and mid-level managers usually have access to leadership training. But first-line managers often get lost in the middle of a sink-or-swim situation. Despite having to navigate a whole load of additional responsibilities while supervising a team for probably the first time, very few companies have learning and development strategies that consider the specific challenges of this group of managers.

The impact: Lost leaders

If you manage to muddle your way through the first-line management stage, you’ll likely have the opportunity for promotion into a role where you’re trained properly. Fail to rise to the challenge without help and you find yourself stepping back down into your old role or leaving the company altogether.

The first-line managers who don’t succeed without the proper training become what I call the lost leaders of the workforce. They had enough potential to be given the extra responsibility of first-line management but weren’t given the support they needed to progress further. They leave the company or even the industry with a bitter taste in their mouth and a career-long aversion to leadership responsibilities.

It’s worth noting here that the workforce is changing – people don’t stay in the same jobs forever anymore. They’re much more willing to job hop, leaving a company or even a whole industry if their needs aren’t being met. In fact, a lack of career development and advancement was the top reason people left their jobs in 2021-22 according to a report by McKinsey & Company³. So failing to prepare first-line managers could be causing a sector-wide shortage of skilled and confident leaders.

The solution: Development from the ground up

Businesses can no longer afford to keep hiring new staff to fill gaps in their workforce. When leaders promote someone into a first-line management position, they need to give them the right support to help them succeed.

The solution here is pretty clear, I think. To nurture talent from within and grow effective future leaders, companies have to prioritize creating a culture of learning and development. Every member of staff should receive regular, high-quality training that helps them to build the knowledge, skills and confidence to succeed.