This Mistake Cripples Businesses. Here's How to Stop It.
By John Caldwell
Throughout my career at RWR Group, I’ve seen the same costly mistake repeated time and time again. A business takes its top individual performer, a brilliant operator or a star salesperson, and promotes them into a leadership role. Everyone celebrates the promotion as a success.
Six months later, that new leader is struggling, their team’s performance has dipped, and the culture is starting to sour.
This isn’t a rare occurrence; it’s an epidemic of what I call ‘accidental managers’. And the data backs up what I've seen on the ground for decades. A recent Chartered Management Institute (CMI) study found that a staggering 82% of managers have received no formal leadership training.
Think about that. We’re handing over our most valuable assets, our people and our culture, to leaders who have never been taught how to lead. It's no wonder Gartner found that 60% of new managers fail within their first two years. We are setting them up to fail.
It’s a Selection Problem, Not Just a Skills Gap
We can’t just blame a lack of training. The real issue starts earlier; it's a fundamental failure in how we select leaders.
Too many organisations confuse operational excellence with leadership potential. Managing a P&L or driving sales is a completely different skill set from inspiring a team, driving strategic transformation, or building a high-performance culture. It is blunt: only one in ten people possesses the natural combination of talents to be a great manager.
When we promote without a rigorous process for identifying that talent, the ripple effects are enormous:
- Top talent walks. People leave managers, not companies. I’ve seen entire high-performing teams dismantled by one poor leadership placement.
- Performance craters. An unsupported manager can’t set clear goals or motivate a team, directly impacting productivity and profitability.
- Brand value erodes. Your leaders define your company’s culture and reputation, both internally and in the market. Ineffective leadership damages your brand from the inside out.
Building a Future-Proof Leadership Pipeline
The good news is that this is entirely fixable. It requires a strategic shift in how we approach leadership development, both for external hires and internal promotions.
First, hire for potential, not just past performance. When we partner with businesses, we look beyond the resume. We assess for emotional intelligence (EQ), learning agility, and genuine values alignment. Does this person have the humility to learn and the resilience to lead through change? Can they build a culture, not just manage a spreadsheet?
Second, onboarding is everything. A leader's success shouldn't be left to chance. The placement is just day one. True success requires a structured development plan from the very beginning, including executive coaching, mentorship, and crystal-clear expectations for the first 90 days and beyond.
At RWR Group, this is at the heart of what we do. We don’t just fill a vacancy; we act as strategic partners to help you identify and nurture leaders who are equipped to drive real transformation. Building a robust leadership pipeline isn’t just good practice—it’s the ultimate competitive advantage.
