Management development means supporting managers to improve their skills and knowledge. 

The role of people managers is varied and could include:

• overseeing day-to-day business operations
• allocating resources
• communicating information
• supporting the health and wellbeing of the team
• developing, coaching, and evaluating employees
• implementing organisational strategies and policies
• acting as change agents.

Managers who perform these activities to high standards are key to organisational success. Our research explains in more detail why managers are so important and why every organisational learning strategy needs to include management development. 

What makes good managers? Identifying some main competencies will help shape development programmes for managers. 

Common managers' competencies can include: 

• Leadership and management skills to influence employees.
• Supporting employees’ development.
• Developing a strategy.
• Communicating effectively, emotional intelligence, influencing and negotiating.
• Supporting health and wellbeing.
• Boosting inclusion and diversity in the team and workplace
• Coaching and mentoring.
• Resolving conflict and building trust.

Larger organisations may use a competence framework to codify managers' competencies. However, such frameworks can sometimes stifle creativity and diversity of thought.

Managers' competencies are not just about skills, they are also about behaviours. CIPD research has identified five behaviours that managers need:

• To be open, fair and consistent.
• To handle conflicts and problems.
• To provide knowledge, clarity and guidance.
• To build and sustain relationships.
• To support development.

The first step of a successful development programme is identifying training needs. This means analysing the gap between actual and required skills for the job. 

Management development needs can arise from day-to-day activities. They can also emerge because of changes in the organisation's direction or the external environment. Read our factsheets on change management and organisation development to find out more. 

A programme based on a training needs analysis will be more tailored, so more effective. It will motivate learners more as they have clear and specific goals. 

After a good training needs analysis, characteristics of effective development programmes are:

• Duration and repetition: this can vary, but courses should be of a reasonable length with learning spaced over time.
• Learning methods: courses should use a variety of learning methods, such as lectures, group work and learning on the job.
• Opportunities to practice.

The CIPD has developed a useful checklist for managers’ development programmes. 

Any management development approach needs to reflect the organisation’s strategy and culture. Our factsheet on L&D strategy explains how business strategy can drive L&D planning. Managers have a big role in creating learning environments in an organisation. Our learning cultures research explains why this is vital for sustained success.

Some organisations have succession plans in place. They ensure that enough people have the skills, experience and knowledge required by managers at all levels before they are in post. 

When developing a management development plan, consider any succession plans and talent management strategies already in place.  

As mentioned above, a combination of diverse learning methods may be useful for management development. Here are some suggestions. 

Development centres

Development or assessment centres focus on personal development opportunities. They can also help identify individuals ready for promotion to senior managerial posts. These centres usually include work-related tasks, group activities and psychometric testing. If you decide to use psychometric testing, choose credible and reliable ones and be clear about their purpose.

Work-based methods

As well as the methods outlined below, our Methods of delivering learning interventions factsheet has other examples of informal approaches to learning.

Coaching and mentoring

Coaching and mentoring by other managers, peers, or professional coaches. These are also skills that managers need themselves to lead their teams effectively.

Shadowing

This gives the opportunity to shadow other managers during a typical work day. The experience should be followed by a reflective conversation to identify learning points and actions.

Secondments

A secondment is the temporary movement of an employee to a different role. This can help managers broaden their skills, knowledge and experience. They also allow organisations to develop their skills base and share knowledge within the business.

Knowledge sharing

Learning from peers is a very effective way to increase managers' skills. This can happen informally, or it can be facilitated by L&D teams. Q&A sessions with senior managers can also be great learning opportunities for all involved. 

Communities of practice

In person or virtual communities create opportunities to share good practice, experience and ideas. Communities of practice can be formal or informal, within the organisation or external. 

Formal learning

Many formal management development courses and qualifications are available, with options including:

• undergraduate, postgraduate and other higher education qualifications in business/management
• courses and qualifications from management membership organisations
• management apprenticeships in different areas such as purchasing and supply management
• in-house management or leadership development programmes delivered by internal L&D teams.

Formal educational options are useful ways of acquiring managerial knowledge and skills, but they can be costly. 

Some management and leadership programmes have been criticised for being too theoretical. It pays to do your research when looking into formal education. If you value time to explore the real-life challenges or explore practical ways to run a team, make sure you choose a course that will cover this.

Here are some common challenges of management development programmes: 

• Divergent learning needs and base-line knowledge and skills. This will make it challenging to tailor the programme. 
  
  
• A small number of very senior managers who have unique needs and demands and few peers to learn from. This is because even big organisations have small senior teams. Coaching or external executive training might be more effective for these managers. 
  
  
• The size or nature of an organisation. Bigger firms tend to have more specialist roles, requiring in depth but specific skills. Managers in smaller organisations might need to lead on both operations and strategy, requiring a diverse range of skills. 
  
  
• Specific skills required for global and international firms. For example, cultural intelligence, negotiating styles or marketing techniques. Managers in these organisations can have the added pressure of managing dispersed teams in different time zones. 
  
  
• Managers with good technical skills but poor people skills. These skills might be more difficult to learn. 

To evaluate how effective a development programme is, you need to define what success looks like. The more data you have to establish a base line, the easier it will be to measure improvements. Some behaviour changes and skills improvements are easier than others to observe and measure. Measuring the overall ability to manage might be harder, but tools like 360 feedback can help. 

Our factsheet on evaluating learning and development has more details on how to assess learning programmes. 

Management development programmes can be very costly. Yet, it is sometimes difficult to evidence a clear link with organisational success. It might be challenging to prove that the development programme is the main cause for changes and improvements. This is why is vital to identify data points and a benchmark before starting any training programme. Evidence from employee engagement surveys and increased productivity can support evaluation findings. A large-scale study published in 2012 put forward evidence of the positive impact that management development has on organisational performance.

Books and reports

Beevers, K. Rea, A. and Hayden, D. (2019) Learning and development practice in the workplace. 4th ed. London: CIPD and Kogan Page.

Gold, J. and Anderson, L. (2017) Developing leadership and management skills (Ebook). CIPD and Kogan Page.

Gold, J., Thorpe, R. and Mumford, A. (2010) Leadership and management development. 5th ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Lancaster, A (2019) Driving performance through learning: develop employees through effective workplace learning. London: Kogan Page.

Visit the CIPD and Kogan Page Bookshop to see all our priced publications currently in print.

Journal articles

Dean, M. and Perrett, R. (2020) Overcoming barriers to women’s workplace leadership: insights from the interaction of formal and informal support mechanisms in trade unions. Industrial Relations Journal. Vol 51, No 3, May. pp169-184.

Fox, A. (2013) Help managers shine. HR Magazine. Vol 58, No 2, February. pp43-44,46,48.

Grant, R (2018) Five steps to delivering effective management apprenticeships. People Management (online).15 March.

Hamori, M., Koyuncu, B. and Cao, J. (2015) What high-potential young managers want. MIT Sloan Management Review. Vol 57, No 1, Fall. pp61-68.

Howlett, E. (2020) The new face of leadership development. People Management (online). 20 August.

Moldoveanu, M and Narayandas, D. (2019) The future of leadership development. Harvard Business Review. Vol 97, No 2, March-April. pp.40-48.

Mukherjee, A. (2020) 5 musts for next-gen leaders. MIT Sloan Management Review. Vol 61, No 4, Summer. pp62-65.

Murphy, W.M. (2012) Reverse mentoring at work: fostering cross-generational learning and developing millennial leaders. Human Resource Management. Vol 51, No 4, July/August. pp549-574.

Ross, S. (2019) Why some talented leaders succeed while others derail. Human Resources (online). 2 April.

CIPD members can use our online journals to find articles from over 300 journal titles relevant to HR.

Members and People Management subscribers can see articles on the People Management website.