When it comes to investing in your company’s future, equipping your middle managers with the necessary leadership development strategies can make or break your business — and your team’s morale.

To build an organization with effective, confident and empowered leaders, HR professionals must be able to identify and foster qualities that best prepare middle managers to step into those roles. Your organization can ensure middle managers have the opportunities they need to succeed by implementing a series of key developmental strategies that, in turn, will also strengthen your business.

Help them address conflict

As middle managers move up in an organization or their span of control increases, the consequences of poorly managed interpersonal conflict can be more widespread and have greater magnitude. Knowing how to effectively navigate these situations is critical. Yet, 34% of middle managers say they lack the resources to address team conflict, according to a recent report from The Predictive Index (PI) and HR Dive’s studioID.

Pro tip:

• Lean on empathy. “Conflict often results from a lack of understanding or empathy,” says Nick Schacht, chief commercial officer at SHRM. Practice and encourage empathy, but be wary of what Schacht refers to as “mepathy” — which he defines as the expectation that others will meet you where you are rather than meeting people where they are.

• Empower them to fail. Much conflict arises because people are afraid of making mistakes or uncertain about how to navigate when they do. Schacht suggests creating an environment where people don’t have a terminal fear of failure to strengthen their confidence and resilience.

Prioritize their development

If you want to build confident and empowered leaders, development is non-negotiable. Yet, the survey found that too many middle managers don’t have the time for it: 54% say a lack of time is the main factor stopping them from taking advantage of training and development opportunities. And if they can’t find it at your company, they’ll find it elsewhere. Deloitte research found that 29% of Millennials and 29% of Gen Zers left their current role and chose a new job based on learning and development opportunities.

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