Leadership Skills Shortfall is Holding Back the UK Economy

A lack of leadership and management skills is hampering the growth potential of small businesses and acting as a brake on productivity, according to a new report published recently by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

The report found that while three fifths of small business owners (59%) say they update their business knowledge and skills at least once a year, specific management training is often lacking.

Only a quarter of small firms questioned (25%) had undertaken management training in the last 12 months. One in four (26%) had never undergone any form of management training at all. The FSB also found few smaller businesses seek external management training for staff, with just a fifth (19%) offering such training to their employees.

Currently just under half of all new UK start-ups fail in their first three years. Studies suggest that a leading cause of failure is poor leadership and management skills. This skills shortfall partly explains the growing productivity gap, with the UK consistently trailing behind its competitors, falling a full 18 percent below the G7 average. This is the widest productivity gap with the G7 since comparable estimates began in 1991.

Here at East Midlands Sandler we specialise in training and developing leaders and managers – this is our core business. We do this through re-enforcement training, using proven methodology which is guaranteed to work. We get results – great results – every time.

A recent example is a client who came to us after been stuck at £3.5m turnover for the past 7 years. Everything they tried failed. They joined Sandler and after 18 months being on the programme they had increased their turnover (and profits) to £7m.

This is the type of success story we have all the time, for varying sizes and scales of businesses of course.

Don’t be one of the 75% of businesses who are standing on their own foot and holding the business back. Make your first positive step and come to a complimentary Sandler Masterclass. Click here to find your local Sandler Trainer.