In Focus: Unlocking the potential of managers and leaders
In today’s fast paced working world, it is important for leaders to position learning as a strategic pillar, not an enabler. In our latest report we’re sharing the tactics that L&D teams can use to support innovation and deliver excellence in leadership programmes and ways in which technology can unlock the potential of leaders and managers.

What’s stopping managers from learning?
In this report we investigate further what exactly is preventing managers from learning and the motivations they have to learn. The research highlights that to increase organisational performance and bottomline L&D teams need to be engaging with leaders and managers at several touch points throughout their learning journey.
Barriers to managers learning:
- 61% lack of time for self study
- 37% uninspiring learning content
- 35% lack of somewhere appropriate to study
- 33% unreliable IT infrastructure, bandwidth or firewall problems
- 33% lack of, or unsuitable IT equipment
- 25% can’t find what they need
Unlocking the potential of leaders and managers is critical to the success of every high performing organisation. In order to thrive in this new world of work, more and more leaders will need to ‘learn how to learn’. Going forward L&D teams and leaders need to work together to identify smart opportunities in order to create blended learning solutions. Once they do this they will be able to see the their true potential.
What you’ll learn in this report
- What motivates leaders and managers to learn
- What is preventing managers from learning
- The learning tools that managers and leaders find most useful
- How high performing learning organisations are engaging with their leaders and managers
- How to create a culture of continuous learning with an organisation
- How leadership needs to be a shared responsibility between L&D and the organisation.

Data for this report is drawn from:
- 2000 leaders and managers and over 2500 non-managers. It has also been gathered from the Towards Maturity 2016 Benchmark™ research with over 700 L&D leaders, 200 e-enabling L&D leaders and 50 Top deck leaders, reported in Unlocking Potential (www.towardsmaturity.org/2016benchmark).
- The Towards Maturity Learning Landscape™ research, gathered online during 2016 from a sample of over 4,500 workers, and published in Learner Voice 3 (www.towardsmaturityorg/learnervoice)
This In-Focus Report is free to download thanks to the support of Towards Maturity’s Ambassador, CrossKnowledge
This report is sponsored by CrossKnowledge. By downloading this report, you confirm that you’re happy for your details to be passed to the report sponsor, for the purposes of receiving information on relevant products and services. If you do not wish for your details to be passed on, simply contact us for a copy of the PDF.
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About the Benchmark
The Towards Maturity Benchmark Study is an internationally recognised longitudinal study on the effective implementation of learning innovation based on the input of 5,800+ participants and 41,000 learners gathered since 2003. Towards Maturity continuously surveys and studies how people learn at work and the impact this has on organisational performance. By turning data into insights and insights into action, this research is used to help L&D leaders assess and improve the appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of their learning provision.
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Download this report
Create an account or sign in to download this report and get instant access to:
- L&D Benchmark Reports
- In-Focus Reports
- Sector Reports
- Case Studies
- Free Resources
This report is sponsored by CrossKnowledge. By downloading this report, you confirm that you’re happy for your details to be passed to the report sponsor, for the purposes of receiving information on relevant products and services. If you do not wish for your details to be passed on, simply contact us for a copy of the PDF.
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