# The accidental manager crisis

- **Episode:** [235](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/235.md) (2025-09-25)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** management, accidental-manager, leadership
- **Time:** 19:41–23:07 (start 1181s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/235?t=1181](https://truthliesandwork.com/235?t=1181)

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[19:41] Isabel Berwick: Okay. So it's not my phrase. It's what it's, um, I think the Chartered Management Institute came up with it and it's great. So an accidental manager is someone who hasn't had any training to be a manager. And that's a lot of people, something like 70 or 80% of managers haven't had any training. So, you know, a lot of jobs, you're good at your job and you get promoted. But what, why does that mean you're going to be a good manager? So, the sign of an accidental manager is someone who hasn't had any training, has no idea about how to manage people as distinct from do the job properly. And I think that the managing of people part of it is, has often been forgotten, particularly, I think British, the British are particularly bad at this actually. And it also plays into why our productivity is so low, because we invest so little in management that we don't think about the impact that has on how well people work. So an accidental manager is probably not a great communicator. They're probably not listening to what their staff say. They're probably telling rather than listening and cooperating. So, one attribute of a very inexperienced or insecure manager is micromanaging, which is a very common thing. So, a micromanager doesn't trust the team, and that might not be because the team aren't trustworthy or good at their jobs. It's just that the manager hasn't learned how to let go. Hasn't, you know, if you've been doing a job really well and then you get made a manager, You still, you've still got it in you to be wanting to control how that job is done. And you just take that into your management role. But that's such a counterproductive way to, I mean, I've had some appalling micromanagers in my time and it's such a counterproductive way to work. It destroys you because your mental health will be affected and it destroys the morale of the team because it feels like they're Being, you know, surveilled all the time. Early in my career, in the late '90s, when management was actually not very much of a thing, you know, I had one manager who trusted me so little that when, when they were off sick, I had to travel to their house on the other side of London to visit them in their house and show them what I was doing. I mean, I kind of laugh about it now, but You know, the whole, the whole situation. I mean, you know, I made a cup of tea and I took cake and stuff, but that was a very strange relationship. I was, you know, quite young. I was in my 20s and my manager was much older. But to invite your subordinate around to your house when you are sick to check up on them is, I think, something that wouldn't happen now. Let's put it that way. When we are young in our careers and we don't have a lot of experience, What is it that, how do we know what is right and what's wrong? I mean, the internet gives a little more, and this was pre, I mean, not pre, properly pre-internet, but you know, before the world of careers online and LinkedIn, I had no idea. None of us had any idea what else was going on in the world. So if that was what my boss said was normal, Okay, so we're gonna take a really quick break