Should we invest in manager development?

Should we invest in manager development?

On paper the answer is obviously yes — managers make or break engagement, retention, and performance. But the 2026 decision is harder than it looks. Two in five employees say their manager isn't trained for the job, a decade of "leadership development" spend hasn't closed that gap, and HR-tech vendors now pitch AI that automates the scheduling, reporting, goal-tracking, and feedback-drafting that used to fill a manager's day.

So the real question isn't whether to develop managers — it's where the investment still pays off when AI is absorbing parts of the role. This page is for HR leaders deciding whether to expand manager development, redirect that budget into AI / manager-support tooling, or both.

Six findings from our library that frame the decision:

Most managers are promoted without ever being trained to manage. People Management reports two in five employees don't think their manager is trained enough, drawing on Unmind's Closing the Leadership Skills Gap report (n≈6,000) and Chartered Management Institute data. The gap is structural — strong individual contributors get promoted into management with little or no preparation.

Manager quality is the highest-leverage variable in the system. Spring Health argues organizational success hinges on manager effectiveness: managers disproportionately shape engagement, wellbeing, and retention, which is the case for structured manager training rather than one-off workshops.

A decade of data says most leadership development under-delivers. Training magazine's 10th-annual Leadership Development Survey — run with Wilson Learning across 9,000+ L&D practitioners over ten years — finds the programs that actually change behavior pair "high tech with high touch." Content alone doesn't move the needle.

AI is now pitched as a partial replacement for the manager. HRTech Series frames the "manager-replacement debate": as HR-tech platforms absorb behavioral analytics, goal-tracking, and performance signals, vendors increasingly position the system — not the manager — as the performance engine. HR Executive describes "agentic AI" that amplifies manager results by taking over administrative busywork.

Badly-run performance management is now a legal liability, not just a soft cost. Norton Rose Fulbright reports an Australian conviction where performance management became a "psychosocial hazard" — an employer found criminally liable under workplace-health-and-safety law. Untrained managers running performance processes are now a documented legal risk, which raises the stakes on the training gap.

The sources don't agree on what to do about the manager.

Train them (the human-capability camp). People Management, Spring Health, and the Training magazine survey treat the manager as the irreplaceable lever — the problem is under-investment and bad training design, not the role itself.

Augment or absorb them (the tech camp). HRTech Series and HR Executive argue HR-tech and agentic AI can take over much of the coordination and admin that fills a manager's day — implying some "management" work shouldn't require a trained human at all. Both have a commercial interest in that conclusion (they sell the tech); calibrate accordingly.

The unresolved tension: if AI absorbs the administrative 60% of the manager's job, does that reduce the need to invest in managers — or raise it? What's left when the admin is gone (coaching, judgment, psychological safety, hard conversations) is exactly the part training has always struggled to teach and AI can't do.

So the live decision is three questions:

1. Which parts of "management" in your org are coordination/admin (automatable) versus judgment/relationship (not)?
2. Is your current manager training actually changing behavior, or just delivering content?
3. If AI takes the admin load, are you redirecting the freed-up manager time into the high-judgment work — or just adding more span?

All corpus articles below open in our admin reader with the editorial-summary contract banner — our text summary on Peoplense, with the full text, author voice, and figures at the original publisher.

• Two in five employees do not think their manager is trained enough — People Management (Unmind n≈6,000 + CMI surveys on the management-training gap)
• Why Your Organization's Success Hinges on Effective Manager Training — Spring Health (case for structured manager training; managers as the disproportionate lever)
• High Tech + High Touch = Effective Leaders — Training magazine (10th-annual Leadership Development Survey with Wilson Learning, 9,000+ practitioners over a decade)
• The Manager-Replacement Debate — When HR Tech Becomes a Performance Management System — HRTech Series (vendor framing of HR-tech absorbing the manager role; calibrate for commercial interest)
• From Busywork to Better Work: Amplify Manager Results with Agentic AI — HR Executive (agentic AI taking over manager admin)
• When Performance Management Becomes a Psychosocial Hazard — Norton Rose Fulbright (Australian WHS conviction; untrained-manager performance processes as legal risk)