A three-month work-based programme for first-time managers and managers in transition — supporting the demanding shift from individual contributor to accountable leader of others, developed against a real management challenge in their own role.
Becoming a manager is not a promotion so much as a change of profession. The capabilities that earned the role are no longer the ones the role requires.
Developing New Managers supports first-time managers, and managers stepping into materially larger responsibility, through the shift from individual contributor to accountable leader of others. It addresses the real demands of the transition — achieving results through a team rather than personal effort, taking responsibility for the performance and development of others, and managing relationships across and beyond the team.
Rather than teaching management in the abstract, the programme has each participant apply it to a live management challenge they are accountable for — so that new capability is built and tested in the work itself, over three months.
First-time managers taking responsibility for a team for the first time.
Recently promoted individual contributors making the move into a managerial role.
Managers in transition stepping into a materially larger or unfamiliar area of responsibility.
Technical or specialist staff who now lead people as well as deliver work.
The programme works across the themes that most commonly determine whether a transition into management succeeds.
Letting go of personal delivery as the measure of contribution, and achieving results through the work of a team instead.
Entrusting work to others while remaining accountable for the outcome — setting expectations, giving authority and following through.
Bringing a team together, supporting individual development, and creating the conditions in which people perform.
Handling the relationships, tensions and disagreements that come with responsibility for others, constructively and fairly.
Communicating direction, expectation and feedback clearly — upward, across and to the team — and listening as a manager must.
Making and owning decisions that affect others, with the judgement and accountability that managerial responsibility brings.
Each participant takes a live management challenge in their own role as their work-based project, running it through the WAL formula — K + P1 + Q = P2 — rather than studying management in the abstract.
Participants record their decisions, actions and learning in structured monthly reflective reports, building the habit of questioning and critical reflection on their own practice as a manager.
Development is corroborated through a three-way loop between the participant, their line manager and WRIA’s central review — coaching, observation and self-reflection together.
A final report assessing the participant’s development as a manager, grounded in the evidence of a real management challenge.
A resolved or materially advanced management challenge that delivered a genuine outcome for the team or function.
Practised capability in delegation, team development, communication and decision-making under responsibility.
A reflective management practice the participant carries forward into their continuing role.
The participant identifies a real management challenge, establishes the relevant management knowledge, and agrees the focus and measures with their line manager, under WRIA review.
The challenge is worked through in the role itself — leading, delegating and deciding — with monthly reflective reporting and continuing feedback.
The participant consolidates learning, brings the challenge to a result, and produces a final assessment of their managerial development, triangulated against external feedback.
Download the detailed outline of structure, focus areas, the work-based project and measurement for in-house delivery.
Organisations license the WRIA model and run Developing New Managers internally on WRIA’s online platform, coordinated by their own certified administrators and under the Institute’s standards and quality assurance.