Accidental managers burn out teams and reshape culture

accidental managers – For employees like Martha and Jane, an “accidental manager” can mean constant extra work, unclear expectations, and difficult conversations avoided until they damage team momentum. Research-backed estimates show accidental management is widespread in the U.K.,

When Martha logs into her workday, she isn’t the official boss of her team. Yet she coordinates schedules, prioritizes projects, and pushes up with upper management on behalf of her team members. Her manager is around. she says—but “he just seems much more interested in creating things than coordinating the team.” So as the next most senior member. the managerial weight lands on her shoulders on top of her own responsibilities.

Martha’s experience has a name: “accidental manager.” It’s a blanket term for people who end up in managerial roles without seeking them out and who often don’t have managerial skills. The path into the role can be pragmatic—management titles may be the only way to grow or get a raise—but the promotion may also arrive because a person’s non-leadership skills looked like the right fit. What follows, experts warn, is often a role without proper training.

A 2023 study from the U.K.’s Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and YouGov found that 82% of people entering management positions are accidental managers. with no formal training. For the employee watching the gap widen day after day, that statistic doesn’t feel abstract. It feels like the reason meetings stall. roles stay fuzzy. and work keeps moving because someone else has quietly stepped in.

That’s also how Jane describes her situation. In luxury goods, Jane started by helping her now-boss with a project. When the boss was promoted, it was contingent on becoming a manager and supervising Jane. Over time. Jane became frustrated that the new manager—“really. really good at her job”—was “not great at managing people. ” especially when it came to difficult conversations about working through other people’s growth potential and workforce development.

Jane says that years in, her boss no longer has only one direct report—but she feels the manager lacks skills to structure the team, listen to everyone, or make job roles clear. The result is an ongoing strain inside the day-to-day rhythm of work, not a single moment of conflict.

The numbers put a sharper edge on those personal accounts. The CMI’s study found that 28% of workers left their positions because of a negative relationship with their manager.

For Kendra Johnson. founder of the Venned Group and a leadership training organization. the problem is built into how companies treat management as a career prize rather than a craft. “A lot of organizations only have one growth lane. and they use management titles as the prize because it’s the structure they have—not because the person is necessarily suited for it. ” she says. Her broader warning is that treating management “like a destination” misreads what it really is: “It’s a skill set. and a hard one.”.

Johnson also ties the rise of accidental managers to who is willing to step into leadership work. “Many bodies of research are showing that Gen Z is becoming less and less interested in management—but someone still has to do it. ” she explains. She says high achievers and top performers often absorb the extra responsibilities because the work needs to be done—until it “snowballed into a full-time management position.”.

She adds that organizations sometimes soften the transition with vague language around managerial duties. Phrases like “Can you lead this initiative?” or “Would you mind onboarding the new hire?” can blur the line between being helpful on a project and being handed a formal leadership role.

Broader workforce disruption may also be speeding up the leap. Lisa Friscia, a leadership and organizational development consultant, points to “Layoffs, COVID, and burnout” driving leadership turnover. “Some people are leapfrogging into roles they would normally have a longer runway to prepare for,” she says.

Helio Fred Garcia—author and management and ethics professor at Columbia University and New York University—frames the issue through the Peter Principle. named for co-creator Laurence J. Peter. The theory holds that employees are promoted based on their previous work until they reach a point where they are “incompetent” in their newest position. Garcia puts the distinction bluntly: “Some people will rise to the occasion and succeed; even thrive. Some will not. Doing well on tasks is not the same as getting other people to do what they are supposed to do. ” he says. “They don’t know enough about what good management is to know that they’re not good at it.”.

He also references the Dunning-Kruger effect, described as a “cognitive bias” in which people think they have greater expertise than they do. Social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger introduced the idea in a 1999 joint paper.

The tension for employees like Martha and Jane is that the problem often isn’t malicious leadership—it’s untrained management arriving faster than skills can catch up. And once the role is in place, the burden doesn’t always disappear. It shifts.

As Garcia puts it. the immediate tactic for employees may involve coaching the manager into better leadership: “Coach the new boss to become better at being a manager. Show the boss how to manage you.” He acknowledges the uncomfortable reality behind that advice. No, it’s not supposed to be a subordinate’s job description. Yet he says “managing up” can make employees’ lives easier in the long run.

Johnson argues that getting vague help requests isn’t enough. “Most people in this situation ask for more support. better communication. or more clarity. and those phrases don’t give the manager anything substantive to act on. ” she says. The alternative is to be specific. Johnson recommends offering deadlines for when updates are needed, and quantifying how much time gets wasted due to miscommunication.

Friscia adds that employees shouldn’t assume there’s no value in an accidental manager. “Most struggling managers still have expertise and insight. The challenge is often figuring out how to access it,” she says. She advises employees to get curious about what the manager sees, prioritizes, and how they prefer to communicate. “This doesn’t mean becoming a yes person—it means learning how to communicate in ways that they can hear and understand.”.

Even so, experts say the responsibility can’t land entirely on individuals. The promotion ladder—the way companies funnel people into management as their main growth lane—often throws employees into leadership without equipping them first. Garcia describes management as “a distinct skill” that requires both temperament and technical skill. warning it’s “a mistake to assume that everyone naturally can be a good manager because they’re a good performer.”.

He points to companies that offer early career employees manager training programs. Those programs, he says, help people learn the tools of management and also reveal whether leadership is actually a fit.

Jane and Martha both connect their own struggles to a lack of professional development options. though their companies differ in size. Jane says her smaller company forces most people to manage someone, yet offers no opportunities to learn the skills. Martha’s much larger firm has a few one-off programs. she says. but most are designed for early career employees rather than seasoned staff who have become managers.

Martha argues that adding training and mentorship programs would help. She says the missing piece isn’t motivation—it’s preparation.

Garcia also highlights the risk of a solely managerial ladder, pointing instead to “multiple tracks” inside companies. He notes that clearer divisions can be common for technically trained roles like scientists, doctors, and lawyers, but the structure can be applied beyond those professions.

Friscia pushes the metaphor further. Companies, she says, should throw out the ladder and switch to “a jungle gym.” The idea is simple: people should have multiple ways to grow, contribute, and increase their impact without being forced into people management.

Both Friscia and Johnson land on a condition that matters as much as the pathways themselves: pay and respect. Their view is that individual tracks should come with comparable pay and the same respect as managerial roles.

Friscia ends with a direct message to employers: “What matters is being honest about what employees can expect,” she says. “If you want to attract and retain strong talent. emphasize that working at your organization will help them grow as professionals—and then provide real opportunities to do that.”.

For workers like Martha and Jane, the stakes aren’t theoretical. When management responsibilities arrive without training. the workplace doesn’t simply become less efficient—it can become heavier. with extra coordination falling on the already reliable. and key conversations postponed until they cost more than they should.

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