Manager Training

New Manager Training: Making Sense of it All in 2025

So here we are, 2025, and I am watching these young managers coming through our doors looking absolutely terrified. And honestly? I don't blame them one bit.

There is something happening right now. The millennials are becoming the bosses. And I mean really becoming the bosses : not just getting the title, but actually having to figure out how to lead people who might be older than them, more experienced than them, and definitely more cynical about "management training."

But let me tell you what I learnt after watching this happen over and over again.

Most of these courses? They are rubbish. Completely useless. You sit there for hours learning about "synergy" and "paradigm shifts" and then you go back to work and have absolutely no idea how to tell someone they are doing a terrible job without making them cry.

The thing is, and this might sound harsh, but most management training completely misses the point. They teach you theory. They give you frameworks. They show you charts and graphs and PowerPoint presentations that look very professional.

What they don't teach you is how to have that awkward conversation when someone on your team smells bad. Or how to deal with the person who always arrives late but gets defensive when you bring it up. Or what to do when you realise you promoted the wrong person and now everyone knows it.

I remember my first management role. God, what a disaster that was.

The company sent me on this three day course about "leadership excellence." We did role plays. We filled out personality assessments. We learnt about different communication styles. It was all very neat and tidy and absolutely nothing like real life.

First week back, I had to fire someone. The training hadn't covered that. Not really. They talked about "having difficult conversations" but they didn't mention the part where the person starts crying and you feel like a complete monster even though they hadn't done any actual work for six months.

Here is what I wish someone had told me back then.

Management isn't about being liked. It is about getting things done through people. And people are messy. They have problems at home. They have days when they can't be bothered. They have egos and insecurities and sometimes they just don't want to do what you need them to do.

The best managers I know? They didn't learn their skills from a course. They learnt them from making mistakes. Lots of mistakes. Painful, embarrassing, keep you awake at night mistakes.

But here is the thing about new manager training that actually works. It is not about learning formulas. It is about learning how to read people.

When someone says "fine" but their body language says "I want to quit," you need to notice that. When someone is struggling but too proud to ask for help, you need to create space for that conversation. When someone is brilliant at their job but terrible at explaining things to others, you need to figure out how to work with that.

None of that comes from a textbook.

The courses that try to teach you emotional intelligence training and interpersonal skills? They are missing something fundamental. You can't learn empathy from a worksheet. You can't develop your ability to motivate people by memorising different motivation theories.

You develop those skills by paying attention. By trying things. By getting it wrong and then figuring out why it went wrong and trying something different next time.

That said (and this might be controversial), I do think there are some basics that every new manager should know. Not the fluffy stuff about leadership styles, but the practical things.

How to run a meeting that doesn't waste everyone's time. How to give feedback that people can actually use. How to set expectations clearly enough that there is no confusion later. How to recognise when someone is about to quit before they hand in their notice.

The problem with most training programmes is they try to turn management into a science. They want neat categories and clear processes and predictable outcomes.

But management is more like cooking. You can learn the basics : how to chop vegetables, how long to cook rice, what temperature to use for different things. But becoming a good cook? That takes practice. Lots of practice. And every kitchen is different. Every ingredient behaves slightly differently. Every dish needs adjustments.

Same with management. The basics matter. But the real skill comes from experience.

I have seen people come out of expensive management programmes completely confident they know what they are doing. They have certificates and action plans and detailed notes. Then they try to implement what they learnt and it all falls apart because real people don't behave like the people in the case studies.

On the other hand, I have seen people who never had any formal training become excellent managers because they paid attention to what was actually happening around them. They listened to their team. They tried things, noticed what worked, and did more of that.

So if you are a new manager, or you are about to become one, here is my advice.

By all means, do the training if your company requires it. Some of it might even be useful. But don't expect it to prepare you for the reality of managing people.

The real learning happens when you are doing the job. When you have to have that uncomfortable conversation. When you have to make a decision with incomplete information. When you have to support someone who is going through a difficult time while still making sure the work gets done.

That is when you find out what kind of manager you are going to be.

And honestly? That is when the real training begins.