When Helen* was offered a new job as the deputy editor of a small magazine, she thought she’d be spending her days hitting tight deadlines and making last-minute changes to features – all pretty standard practice for an experienced writer. But soon after she started, she learnt that her boss worked part-time, doing so from home, “leaving me to manage the team day-to-day on my own,” she says. “I spent all day answering questions when I was still learning the ropes myself. It became almost impossible to do my job properly.” As the magazine hired more staff, who also became her responsibility, things got worse. “I’d had no management training whatsoever, and was completely out of my depth.”
Helen had become an “accidental manager” – an employee who is put in charge of a team by default, without proper guidance or instruction. According to recent research by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and YouGov, as many as 82 per cent of new bosses in the UK are in this position, essentially left to improvise when it comes to dealing with their junior staff.
