You were brilliant at your job. So they made you a manager.

And then, quietly, everything got harder.

The skills that earned you the promotion — technical expertise, individual performance, deep subject matter knowledge — turned out to be almost completely unrelated to what the new role actually required. Suddenly you're responsible for other people's performance, their motivation, their conflicts, their growth. And nobody handed you a manual.

There's a name for this. Accidental managers are people who have moved up the corporate ladder with no formal training in management or leadership. To put it simply, they are not correctly trained or equipped to manage people. Associations Now

And it is far more common than most organisations want to admit.

The Scale of the Problem

82% of those who enter management positions have had no proper training — a figure so striking it bears repeating. Not a minority. Not a fringe case. The overwhelming majority of people leading teams right now have never been formally prepared to do so. CEO Today

A further 22% were "quietly promoted" — given responsibility for other people without formal acknowledgment, a pay increase, or a title change. This means that in total, more than eight in ten managers find themselves in leadership roles without any clear intention or process of preparation. Coachlab

The accidental manager problem hasn't gone away. If anything, it has intensified as organisations restructure and promote quickly. In the race to fill gaps and reward high performers, companies keep making the same mistake: assuming that excellence in one role translates automatically into the ability to lead others in theirs. Association for Talent Development

It doesn't. And the cost of that assumption is significant.

What It Costs — In Numbers

Among workers who have an ineffective manager, only one-third say they are motivated to do a good job — and as many as half are considering leaving in the next 12 months. Associations Now

Research confirms that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement. And 57% of employees have left a job because of their manager. Everfit Blog

Think about what that means practically. Seven out of ten people who leave an organisation — with all the recruitment costs, knowledge loss, and team disruption that follows — do so because of a leadership problem that could have been addressed. Broken cultures, burned-out employees, and leaders who feel abandoned in roles they were never trained to handle. Luisa Zhou

And yet organisations that invest in management training see returns of $3 to $11 for every dollar spent — with ROI reaching 415% annually in some cases. There are very few investments with a payback that clear. Luisa Zhou

What It Feels Like From the Inside

The data tells one story. But the human experience of being an accidental manager tells another — and it's one that rarely gets acknowledged publicly.

Almost half of managers who have repeatedly asked for support say they feel "overwhelmed" and "underequipped" for their role. They are not disengaged. They are not indifferent. They are trying — in many cases genuinely trying — without the tools or frameworks to translate that effort into effective leadership. Coachlab

The irony is that many accidental managers were promoted precisely because of how driven and capable they were as individuals. They may have the technical expertise and credibility that earned them the promotion, but they often lack the leadership skills needed to succeed — such as handling conflict, giving meaningful feedback, setting expectations, and driving team motivation.

And because they're high achievers by nature, they often mask the struggle rather than name it. They push harder. They overwork to compensate for the gaps. They eventually burn out — or their teams do.

Why Organisations Keep Getting This Wrong

Organisations are generally poor at identifying those with leadership potential because they typically do not invest in expensive leadership programmes before the individual reaches a position of authority. The training, if it comes at all, comes after the damage has already started. CEO Today

The accidental manager problem persists not because organisations are indifferent to it, but because the structure of most organisations makes it difficult to solve. Promotions happen reactively. Development is commissioned after the fact. And by the time the gaps become visible — in team turnover, disengagement scores, or performance reviews — the culture has already shifted in ways that take years to repair. Association for Talent Development

Nearly half of managers believe colleagues won promotions based on internal relationships and profile, rather than their ability and performance. When promotion is disconnected from leadership readiness, the cycle perpetuates itself. CEO Today

What Breaking the Cycle Actually Looks Like

The good news — and there is good news — is that accidental managers are not the problem. The absence of training is. With the right support, they can become the leaders their teams and organisations need.

The most common challenges leaders face are not technical skills but relational and time-related issues: frustrations with people, time management, guiding change, and cross-functional influence. These are exactly the situations that are often addressed through coaching. Gitnux

Coaching works for accidental managers because it meets them exactly where they are. It doesn't require them to start from scratch or admit failure. It starts with where they're already strong and builds from there — developing the self-awareness, communication skills, and leadership frameworks that formal training never provided.

Leaders who develop the skill of powerful questioning discover that their role shifts from problem-solver to thought partner. That shift — from the person who has all the answers to the person who creates the conditions for others to find theirs — is the core transformation that makes accidental managers into intentional ones. ANHCO

A Note to Anyone Reading This Who Recognises Themselves

If you were promoted into a leadership role and have spent any part of it feeling like you're making it up as you go — this isn't a confession of inadequacy. It's a description of a structural problem that affects the majority of managers, at every level, in organisations of every size.

The fact that you're aware of the gap is already a significant advantage. Most people aren't. And awareness, paired with the right support, is where leadership development actually begins.

You don't need to wait for your organisation to fix this. The most effective leaders take ownership of their own growth — and increasingly, they're doing that through coaching.

Conclusion

The accidental manager problem is one of the most quietly damaging issues in the modern workplace. It costs companies their best people, their culture, and their performance. It costs managers their confidence, their wellbeing, and in some cases their careers.

The solution isn't complicated. It just requires someone to actually invest in it — whether that's the organisation, or the individual themselves.

The best leaders aren't the ones who arrived already formed. They're the ones who recognised the gap and chose to close it.

At Coach on Tap, we match managers and leaders at every stage with coaches who understand exactly what it means to step into leadership without a roadmap. Find your coach today at coachontap.co.