Most of the leaders we work with wouldn't dream of hiring an accountant who had no training in accounting. They wouldn't consider for a moment hiring an engineer who had no engineering training. They'd laugh in your face if you suggested that they receive treatment from a doctor who had no medical training. But for some reason, they have no problem at all hiring or promoting someone with absolutely no management experience in a management position.

How would you answer these four questions in regards to our organization?

• What are the last three formal programs your managers attended to support their ongoing personal and professional development?
• Are you sending your managers to eight days of training per year?
• Do each of your managers have a personal development plan?
• Do you know what the next viable career step is for each manager who reports to you?

If you can't answer one or more of these, you may have an organizational blind spot. And you are not the only one. Most companies have this blind spot and there a few reasons why it commonly occurs.

One classic scenario is the common decision to promote a high-performing salesperson into the role of sales manager. The jobs are totally different and you do no favors to yourself, the organization or the candidate when you make this decision.

Another scenario is a company that is growing dramatically and senior management invests in product training and development, research and development or support for their customer-facing staff - but there is no ongoing management training. We recommend that the managers need to spend eight to ten days per year on their own personal development, on finding ways to improve their work life, to increase their own personal effectiveness on the job and to keep up with the changes in the industry.

If there is no formal coaching process in place in your organization and no personal development plan in place for each manager (and indeed for each employee!), then that's a major blind spot. Most organizations don't address this blind spot. When organizations have brought their managers to us to train and set up a realistic reinforcement and coaching plan, the picture got a lot brighter and the company gets back on track quickly.

**Excerpted from The Road to Excellence: Six Leadership Strategies to Build a Bulletproof Business, by Dave Mattson.