SHRM26 Debrief · Leadership & Development · #1965
The Silent Killer of Culture: Undeveloped Leaders and How HR Can Fix It
with Kelly Merbler
"You don't have a culture problem. You have a leadership development problem."
What it was about
Most organizations don't actually have a culture problem — they have a leadership development problem, because untrained "accidental managers" create the turnover, engagement, and morale symptoms HR mistakes for a culture crisis.
By the numbers
70%
of employee engagement is tied directly to the employee's leader (Gallup)
50%
turnover rate among first-time managers in the speaker's example, costing the company $275,000
60%
of leaders fail in their first year (cited as SHRM data)
Key notes
- Reframe training requests to executives around ROI and cost data (e.g., first-time manager turnover rate and dollar cost) instead of vague appeals like "we need more training."
- Diagnose before you prescribe: ask a manager what problem they're seeing, what they want to measure, and what success looks like before setting up any training.
- Use the four coaching questions in one-on-ones: What's going well? What does good look like? What matters most this week? What are you committing to?
The contrarian takeThe conventional instinct when a manager or team is struggling is to immediately schedule more training, but the speaker argues this is often the wrong move. Leaders should withhold training and diagnose the actual problem first, since prescribing training without diagnosis is like a doctor prescribing medicine without asking about symptoms.
Take this back Monday
Do this for your team
In your next 1:1s, ask each manager: what's going well, what does good look like, what matters most this week, what are you committing to?
Say this in your next leadership meeting
70% of engagement traces back to the leader, and 60% of new leaders fail in year one — we have a leadership development problem, not a culture problem.
Watch out for
- Prescribing generic training ("let's just do a training") without first diagnosing the underlying problem, like a doctor treating symptoms without asking what's wrong.
- Collecting engagement/culture survey data and then not acting on it or even reviewing it with frontline leaders.
- Trying to fix everything from a survey at once instead of committing to one focus area ("diluted focus gets diluted results").
Fun fact · Kelly Merbler
Kelly Merbler is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Executive Coach who also hosts her own leadership podcast, Coffee with Kelly.
If this landed, see these
↳ Go deeperThe Secret Superpower of High Functioning Leaders: How Process Intelligence Creates Aligned, Accountable TeamsNames the missing third leadership dimension: process intelligence, the piece accidental managers never get taught.⇄ The counterpointWhy CEOs Don’t Trust HR (And What Great CHROs Do Differently)Argues the real fix isn't manager training at all, it's HR learning to speak the CEO's financial language.✦ The unexpected oneManaging Stress & Increasing Recovery to Maintain Peak PerformanceThe accidental manager's real problem might be their own unmanaged stress, not a training gap.