3 ways to create future-ready leaders

The Future of Media London 2024

Giving managers practical guidance on how to support staff, as well as helping them on their own mental wellness, is key to developing future leaders, a recent Nabs-led panel concluded.

At a talk at The Future of Media London, Michelle Sarpong, commercial lead at the7stars, discussed the challenges facing managers, who “wear many hats now”.

Sarpong said people now move into management positions much younger, while the hybrid working environment has also made being a manager harder.

She suggested three things that companies can do on this front.

First is to recognise that management roles aren’t suited to everyone. “Not everyone needs to be a manager; not everyone is capable of being a manager,” Sarpong explained. “That forces people down a certain path.”

Businesses need to be mindful of this, because poor management could affect staff in the long term. Good management is especially important at a time when many businesses are laser-focused on cost.

Lorraine Jennings-Creed, director of wellbeing services and culture change at Nabs, said: “We’re conflating efficiency with putting too much on our people — we need to create a bit of slack, so we’re not expecting our teams to just keep going.”

Secondly, diversity must be improved. While companies have generally been doing well on junior-level recruitment, “we need to see more senior presence in certain boardrooms”, Sarpong pointed out.

Citing an experience when one recruiter explained how English was not a candidate’s first language in a way that Sarpong had found offensive, she said: “Having the right people in certain rooms will help eradicate that kind of issue.”

However, “it’s not on companies to take that sole responsibility”, Sarpong added. There are also two simple things everyone can do: taking a general interest in people and checking our own biases.

Training needed

The most important action, though, is to invest in training.

With many budgets slashed post-Covid-19 and a rise in demand for Nabs’ support services, Sarpong observed that while the need for training has gone up, investment has not followed the same upward trend.

As Jennings-Creed said: “Managers hold the key here — spotting signs when team members are moving to crisis point.”

For her, this also means “prioritising your own self-care”, noting: “You’ll also have an impact on your team if your mental health isn’t right.”

To support this need, in October Nabs launched the Managers’ Mindset training for managers to support their teams’ mental wellness as well as their own.

Jennings-Creed added: “If we’re expecting managers to deliver more emotional support, they can’t be overlooked either.”

The panel was chaired by Cameron Swan, UK managing director at Active International.

Watch the full session