People starting out in their careers are turning away from the management track, and who can blame them? 

Put off by what they see as more stress and more overwhelm for not much reward, younger people coming into the workforce are engaging in the snappily titled ‘conscious unbossing’. Translation: you can keep your management job, thanks. 

In fact, just over half of young professionals are deliberately avoiding management roles, according to this study by Robert Walters. 

In adland, the problem is clear to see. When we carried out our community consultation, All Ears, we weren’t surprised by the challenges facing managers. Managers’ roles have become increasingly demanding, but they aren’t receiving enough training or support to keep up.  

Management duties today go well beyond the scope of timesheets, appraisals and other more typical management tasks. Mental wellness support is now an essential part of the day job. So much so that, according to All Ears, 40% of adlanders would approach their line manager first if they had an emotional health challenge. Yet we also found that only 19% of managers had received any training before taking up their roles. 

That discrepancy is causing a lot of stress and anxiety, both for managers and their teams.  

Team members are noticing when their managers are struggling, and it’s affecting everyone’s mental wellness. Overall, 60% of All Ears respondents said that their manager had been promoted without receiving any management training, and many of those people said that their own mental wellness suffered as a result.  

What’s more, just one-third of All Ears respondents believed their managers could effectively promote positive mental wellness within their teams. These are clear signs that a lack of training and support doesn’t just harm managers. The impact seeps through the team too. 

On the flipside, managers have a great opportunity to make a positive cultural difference. When managers are supported and trained, they can help to lift up team mental wellness.  

We’ve got a lot of work to do, together, to get to that buoyant place. All Ears showed us that a huge 75% of managers have experienced mental wellness challenges. It’s no wonder, when they often carry a heavy emotional burden.  

There are many different reasons why people are often promoted into management positions without sufficient training. In our fast-paced and pressurised industry, things move quickly – so quickly, in fact, that we’ve heard stories of people coming into work one Monday to find that their manager has left and they need to step into the role there and then. 

While we understand how hectic working days can be, it’s really important that we all work together to create time and space to train up managers.  

This is a challenge that affects our entire industry. It's important that we take action together to support the wellbeing of everyone in our profession.

There are already issues in our industry with recruitment and retention. We’ve got to do what we can to keep people healthy, thriving and with us for long and fulfilling careers. The talent crisis will deepen further if we don’t address and support mental wellness, starting with our key ingredient – managers. 

It’s time to invest in managers, to support them, and to give them what they need to have a much more positive experience at work. More mental wellness support, leading to more creativity, more team cohesion, more people staying in our industry rather than exiting because they feel as though they will never receive the support they need to do well. 

NABS has introduced Managers’ Mindsets, a holistic training and support programme designed to address the key challenges identified by All Ears. In our growing offer, we have workshops, speed mentoring, access to our Advice Line and more, all couched in community and compassion. 

Our mission is to improve managers' awareness, enhance their self-care practices, and support their personal and professional growth.  

We want the industry to be on board with us, so we’re really encouraged that the All In Action Plan, created following the Advertising Association’s All In’s industry census, is campaigning alongside us to transform our industry’s mental wellness. One of the plan’s key actions for adland is to ‘upskill your managers in mental health training’ and we are proud that they’re recommending NABS’ Managers Mindsets programme as the training to take up.  

Two great workshops to start with are Mental Wellness Conversations and Inclusive Leader. These sessions build up managers with the insights and tools they need to have supportive conversations with their teams, paving the way for more open and psychologically safe communication with their team members. 

This is our chance, together, to transform adland’s culture. The research is clear. We need change to happen and our response to is to offer holistic training and support for managers. Our invitation to you is to take up our offer, and to work with us, so that we can give a serious boost to mental wellness across our industry, together.  

Let’s band together, shift our collective outlook and reap the benefits of thriving talent. 

If we get this right, we might even encourage young professionals to ‘consciously boss’.  

To discuss bringing Managers’ Mindsets to your organisation with NABS please click here.