What do accidental managers actually need from L&D?

Most accidental managers get one of two things from L&D: nothing, or a course.

Nothing is common. In the CMI’s 2023 research with YouGov, 82% of managers entering management said they had not had any proper management and leadership training. The course, when it comes, is often a few days of content in the first months: delegation, feedback, performance conversations, wellbeing, the people policies. All of it useful. Much of it forgotten by the time the new manager needs it.

This article is for the L&D team deciding what to offer instead. If you’re the new manager yourself, The accidental manager: what do you stand for? is written for you.

Who are accidental managers?

People promoted into management because they were good at something else, usually the job they now manage.

That’s a reasonable basis for a promotion, and also a risk. Benson, Li and Shue’s study of sales firms found companies tended to promote their best salespeople, who then tended to become weaker managers. It’s one industry, so treat it as a pattern to watch for rather than a law. The skills that earned the promotion aren’t the ones the new job runs on.

Hemsley Fraser’s 2026 survey of more than 800 L&D professionals names the problem directly: people promoted into leadership without training, leaving them without the confidence or capability to lead effectively. Its UK respondents put strengthening core people-management skills at the top of their leadership priorities, at 86%. It’s a training provider’s survey, so read it as a sign of what L&D teams are worried about rather than a measure of the problem.

Why doesn’t first time manager training stick?

Usually for three reasons, and none of them is the content.

It comes at the wrong time. A new manager doesn’t need a module on performance conversations in week two. They need it the week before their first one. Front-loaded training asks people to store skills for situations they haven’t met yet.

It competes with the day job. The CIPD’s Good Work Index 2025 found that 60% of UK managers said they had the training and information to manage people well, and 59% said they had the time. Both have risen since 2023, when each was 52%, but roughly four in ten managers still say they lack the time. A newly promoted manager may also still be carrying part of their old role.

It stays in the room. Managing people is what researchers call an open skill: there’s no single right way to run a one-to-one, so a manager has to adapt what they’ve learned to the person in front of them. Blume and colleagues’ meta-analysis of 89 transfer studies found that factors like motivation and a supportive work environment had stronger relationships with transfer for open skills, such as leadership, than for closed ones. For this kind of learning, what happens back at work matters even more than usual.

What do new managers need in their first three months?

Fewer topics, timed to the moments they’ll meet, and practised in the work itself.

A useful way to plan is to list the first conversations a new manager will have to hold, rather than the topics a course would cover:

• The first one-to-one with each person, especially former peers.
• Setting expectations for a piece of work, clearly enough that both sides would describe it the same way.
• Saying no, or not yet, to a request they can’t deliver.
• Raising a problem with someone’s work for the first time.
• Passing on a decision they didn’t make and may not agree with.

Each of those is a moment the team will judge them on. Prepare them for each one close to when it happens, give them the chance to rehearse the words, and ask afterwards what happened. How do you prepare for a difficult conversation? is written for the fourth.

Underneath the conversations, they need something to be consistent with. That’s the subject of the companion article: a new manager who has worked out what they stand for has a reference point for every case-by-case decision.

What should a leadership course for new managers include?

If you’re designing or buying one, the evidence on leadership training points in a clear direction. Lacerenza and colleagues’ meta-analysis of 335 samples associated better outcomes with a needs analysis, feedback, multiple delivery methods (especially practice), spaced sessions and face-to-face delivery that isn’t self-administered.

For new managers, that suggests:

• Short sessions spread across their first few months, not a block in week one.
• Each session tied to a real conversation coming up, with time to rehearse it.
• One behaviour to practise between sessions, with their own team.
• A note of what they tried, brought back to the next session.

This is a smaller, slower course than most. It asks less of the diary at any one time and more of the weeks in between, which is where the job is actually learned.

How do you get their own manager involved?

Ask for less, and be specific about it.

Taylor, Russ-Eft and Chan’s meta-analysis of behaviour modelling training found transfer was greatest when, among other conditions, trainees’ own superiors were also trained. Most L&D teams can’t train every senior manager. You can usually ask them for three things: a short conversation before the programme about what the new manager should focus on, ten minutes after each session to ask what they’ll try, and an honest observation at the end.

It’s a small ask, and it changes what the new manager experiences. Their development stops being something that happens elsewhere and becomes something their own manager notices.

Where does trust come in?

At the centre, because a new manager’s first months are largely about whether people are willing to rely on them.

Trust is someone’s confidence in you with something they care about. A team that used to see the new manager as a peer is now working out, quietly, what they can rely on them for. Two of the five Trust Questions tend to come up first: Do they believe I’ll do what I said? and Do they believe I can handle what’s needed?

Four of the twenty behaviours that strengthen trust come up again and again for new managers:

• Set and confirm clear expectations before work begins.
• Apply the same standards in tone, decisions and communication across people and situations.
• Only agree to what you can realistically deliver and control.
• Address issues directly with the person involved.

Each is something a team member can see. That makes them practical things for a new manager to practise, and gives you something specific to ask about at each review.

How will you know the support is working?

Ask what the people around the new manager would notice, and be honest about who is answering.

Taylor, Russ-Eft and Taylor’s review of 107 management training evaluations found that managers’ own ratings of their improvement showed the largest effects, and ratings from the people who reported to them much smaller ones. So a new manager saying “I’m much better at one-to-ones now” is worth recording, and worth checking. Pair it with a dated note of what they practised and, where you can, a word from their manager or their team.

Where this fits

The Trust Leader Hub is built for the part between sessions. A new manager chooses one behaviour, from the Self-Assessment or from a Trust Map for one relationship that matters, works through short activities, practises at work and records what happened. Three Purpose playlists help them write a Manifesto, the reference point the companion article describes. You see their progress, and the record is their own account, not proof.

Trust Leader for L&D teams sets out how it fits a programme, including a 90-day pilot.