Teamwork: The Ultimate Succession Plan

5 min read

May 2025

In many organizations today, new managers are often thrown into leadership roles with little to no formal preparation. Despite the critical role managers play in shaping workplace culture and performance, the UK faces a major skills gap: according to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), a staggering 82% of managers have never received any formal management or leadership training (CMI, 2023).

These so-called "accidental managers" are typically promoted based on technical expertise rather than leadership ability, creating serious organizational risks.

Poor management is now a leading factor behind one in three employees leaving their jobs, while only 27% of UK workers rate their managers as "highly effective." These figures reveal a systemic failure to equip managers with the skills they need—reinforcing the urgent need for a radical rethink of how we build leadership capability.

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Management Training Needs a Mindset Shift

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Even when training takes place, traditional management training tends to focus narrowly on the individual. It teaches frameworks, models, and leadership behaviors—yet often overlooks the fertile soil that nurtures real leadership: the team. Without healthy team dynamics, even the best-trained managers struggle to thrive.

Leadership pipelines today often resemble leaky faucets rather than powerful, flowing streams. This is a serious business issue: research from McKinsey shows companies with strong "leadership bench strength"—a robust pipeline of ready leaders—outperform their peers by 2.2 times in revenue growth.

Fortunately, there’s a better way forward. When organizations focus on building strong, authentic teamwork, they aren’t just solving today’s collaboration challenges—they’re quietly, powerfully building tomorrow’s leaders.

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The Power of Role Models

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Good managers are mirrors—they reflect and amplify the environments that shaped them.
The team cultures they experience early in their careers often define the leadership styles they eventually model. Imagine two very different worlds:

The "Hunger Games" Office: Information is hoarded. Feedback is weaponized. Success depends on being sharper, faster, and more political. If you emerge from this environment, you're likely to perpetuate toxicity—or avoid leadership altogether.
The "We-Invest-In-Teams" Office: Feedback sessions are safe spaces. Personal boundaries are respected. Goals are co-created, not imposed. Here, collaboration is cultural, not performative—and leadership feels human and attainable.

As Harvard Business Publishing points out, leadership is often more "caught than taught." People learn how to lead by observing and experiencing leadership, not memorizing frameworks (Harvard Business Publishing, 2018).

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Teams Are Leadership Incubators

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High-functioning teams are the best leadership schools on earth. When trust, psychological safety, and shared purpose are practiced daily, leadership development happens naturally—not just in boardrooms or workshops.

Research backs this up: organizations that build highly collaborative team environments experience higher rates of internal leadership promotions (Gallup, 2022).

Why? Because real leadership is made up of micro-skills practiced every day:

Negotiation
Giving and receiving feedback
Setting and respecting boundaries
Aligning goals
Building resilience under pressure

Picture this: At a Friday standup, Emma—not the team lead—spots a looming project risk. She raises it openly. The team tackles it without blame or defensiveness. Her manager thanks her for speaking up. A new protocol is born—driven by a team member, not imposed from above. At that moment, Emma isn't just doing her job. She’s practicing leadership.

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Succession Without the Scramble

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In many organizations, succession planning feels like a last-minute scramble—a desperate search to fill a gap after a key manager departs.

But when you invest in teamwork, leadership emergence becomes natural, not an emergency:

Ownership becomes second nature.
Coaching conversations happen daily.
Adaptability is a team habit, not a heroic effort.

Instead of trying to "make leaders" through crash courses or mentorship sprints, organizations grow leaders through strong, daily team practices.

It’s not flashy. It’s not overnight. But it’s real, sustainable, and effective.

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Practical Steps: Building Leadership Through Teams

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Leadership development through teams doesn’t require a massive overhaul—but it does require a critical mindset shift: Don’t just train the manager. Train the team.

Historically, team training was reserved for senior executives or dysfunctional teams. That needs to change.

Just like the best healthcare prioritizes prevention, the best leadership pipelines are built by training teams early and often. Thanks to smart content platforms and AI coaching, scalable team coaching is now possible—and necessary.

Here are three ways to start:

Teach the Basics of Teamwork
Build foundational skills in communication, decision-making, and collaboration.
(“First you learn to run with the pack—then you learn to lead it.”)
Foster Teamwide Growth Commitments
Introduce shared growth habits, like TeamPath’s model of testing new habits and rituals together.
Train Everyone in Facilitation
Facilitation isn’t just for managers. Every team member should learn to lead meetings and discussions—an essential leadership skill.

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