Poor management and leadership is holding back the UK’s economic growth, according to a new government report produced in partnership with the CIPD.

The BIS report - Leadership & Management in the UK – The Key to Sustainable Growth – brings together recent research evidence to argue that ineffective management is one of the main factors hindering the country’s international competitiveness.

One of the pieces of research cited is the CIPD’s Learning & Talent Development Survey 2012, which found that three-quarters of employers have a deficit of leadership and management skills and 43 per cent of managers regard their own line manager as ineffective.

The report also lays out the government’s response to the challenge, which includes funding available for growing businesses under the Growth Accelerator Initiative and Growth and Innovation Fund; and the Employer Ownership Pilot which provides funds to employers setting up their own training programmes.

“Too many of our organisations, both private and public, are failing to achieve their full potential,” said skills minister John Hayes as he launched the report. “Improving our leadership and management capability is fundamental to creating a culture where more organisations have the ambition, confidence, resilience and skills to respond to compete successfully, both nationally and globally.

“Government is supporting this process by creating a framework for business growth and by providing specific support to those businesses with the most potential.

“Employers have to be the driving force behind any improvements. The potential gains are clear: improved survival rates, better employee motivation and well-being, and increased profitability and performance.”

As well as the CIPD, the report was also produced with the Chartered Management Institute, the Institute of Leadership & Management and the Institute for Employment Studies.

CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese said: “There are eight million people in the UK workforce with direct management responsibility for one or more people. This army of people managers has a huge impact on this country’s productivity and global competitiveness – not to mention on individual and social wellbeing and resilience.

“Leadership can no longer be about a few charismatic ‘masters of the universe’ at the top. There’s a whole cadre of managers in the middle and on the front line who need to be equipped and inspired with the skills to lead and to win hearts and minds – from the very earliest stages of their careers. We can’t as a nation afford to keep promoting people to management roles and assuming that these capabilities come naturally. We need a step change in the UK in how we develop and promote people management in every organisation, as this report so clearly highlights”.