Why Training Your People Pays Off—Especially the Ones Who Lead Others
Training managers prepares the managers of tomorrow.
In this article, you’ll learn:
Why investing in managers changes how work gets done across teams
How training decisions affect productivity, retention, and succession
Where productivity breaks down when managers aren’t supported
Why leadership training delivers a return beyond individual performance
Why Training Your People Pays Off—Especially the Ones Who Lead Others
In conversations with executives, I often hear training framed as a benefit. Something you offer once performance stabilizes. Something you do when time allows.
But in practice, the leaders who see the strongest return don’t treat training as a benefit at all.
They treat it as an investment in how work gets done, today and in the future.
A recent Harvard Business Review article, Why Training Employees Pays Off Twice (01.26), reinforces this idea, pointing out that organizations that invest in training don’t just gain skills, they gain stronger performance and higher retention. In other words, training pays off twice.
What the article makes clear—and what I see repeatedly in my work—is that this payoff compounds when training is directed at managers.
Why Managers Shape How Work Actually Gets Done
Most productivity challenges don’t originate with individual contributors.
They show up in:
unclear priorities
inconsistent decision-making
uneven delegation
reactive communication
All of these sit squarely in a manager’s scope.
When managers aren’t trained in how to lead work—not just oversee it—teams compensate. They fill gaps with more meetings, more messages, and more effort. We shared in a different article how more communication doesn’t equal more productivity. Capacity is consumed quietly, often without anyone realizing why work feels heavier.
Training managers changes that dynamic. It gives them:
a shared way to think about how work should flow
stronger judgment about where effort belongs
confidence to delegate and develop others
the ability to protect team capacity while maintaining performance
This is where training delivers its strongest return.
Training Isn’t Just for Today’s Managers
One of the most overlooked aspects of training is succession.
The managers you invest in today are shaping the leaders you’ll rely on tomorrow. If they’re never trained in how to think about capacity, effort, and work design, those gaps get passed forward.
In contrast, when managers are trained intentionally:
future leaders inherit stronger habits
expectations are clearer
teams operate with less friction, drag and whiplash
and leadership transitions are smoother
Training becomes a long-term asset, not a one-time event.
Why “We Don’t Have Time to Train” Is the Costliest Assumption
Ironically, the teams most resistant to training are often the ones that need it most.
When leaders say they don’t have time, what they usually mean is that work is already operating at full capacity. But that’s precisely why training matters. Without it, teams keep spending effort on work that doesn’t compound.
Training isn’t about adding more to the calendar.
It’s about changing how time and effort are used going forward.
The Leadership Shift That Pays Off
The HBR article reinforces a truth many leaders sense but don’t always act on:
Training isn’t a cost to manage. It’s a return to design.
When leaders train managers—and future managers—to think differently about how work flows, productivity improves without asking people to work harder or longer.
That’s the kind of return that shows up twice:
once in performance
and again in people who stay, grow, and lead better
Now What?
If productivity readiness is a priority this year, it may be worth looking beyond skills training and focusing on how managers are trained to think about work.
My Time Economics session is designed for leadership teams who want to improve performance by examining how time and effort are currently being spent, and where small shifts in work design can produce a stronger return.
Organizations often use this session to:
align managers on how work should flow
reduce unnecessary coordination and rework
improve decision quality without extending the workday
strengthen leadership practices that carry forward
It’s a practical way to invest in managers today while building stronger leadership capacity for what comes next.
👉 Learn more about the Time Economics session