Cookie-cutter leadership programs must go — and 6 other things we need to stop doing at work this year

According to Rebecca Houghton, cookie-cutter leadership programs are holding back organisations.

Scroll LinkedIn for two minutes and you’ll be hit with a flood of things you should be doing – new competencies to build, leadership trends to follow, acronyms to learn.

One company’s doing AI-powered mindfulness workshops. Someone else is a “neuroleadership-certified resilience architect.” And of course, someone’s cold-plunging at 5am and calling it strategic clarity.

In this kind of noise, how is anyone meant to decide what actually matters? How do leaders cut through the trend-chasing and focus on what will actually move the needle for their people and their business?

Before we add more to the to-do list, maybe it’s time for a to-don’t list.

To-don’t: Cookie-cutter leadership programs

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For years, managers have been force-fed a buffet of development programs, each adding another skill to an already bloated list of expectations.

They’re told they need to be operationally excellent, technically sharp, strategically minded, influential, resilient, engaging, and savvy – all at once.

It’s an impossible standard. No wonder the resilience training you just invited them to is met with eye rolls.

After all, they don’t lack resilience – they’re just exhausted from trying to be everything and the laundry list of competencies they’re expected to master just keeps growing.

And it’s frustrating for employers too. They’re thinking, “I’m giving you all this development – why aren’t you thriving?” But the problem isn’t a lack of training. It’s a lack of focus.

Our research at BoldHR – based on data from more than 1,000 Australian middle managers – showed that most leadership programs aren’t moving the needle. What does? A more focused, strategic approach that builds on what actually drives impact.

For middle managers, four core competencies matter most:

• Motivate & engage – Inspiring action in individuals and teams.

• Cope – Managing pressure and staying resilient.

• Manage up – Navigating power and politics strategically.

• Manage reputation – Leading and projecting value.

Instead of dumping them into generic, one-size-fits-none training, employers need to benchmark their people, identify their real needs, and focus on what will have the biggest impact. That’s why at BoldHR, we never run a leadership program without first using our proprietary benchmarking process to profile a company’s middle managers because if you’re not training for impact, you’re just wasting time and money.

The “I saw this course on LinkedIn and it looks great” approach to leadership development needs to be called out for what it is: well-intentioned, but ultimately lazy, reactive, and disconnected from what your people actually need.

To-don’t: Stick middle managers in a classroom and call it development

While we’re on the topic of leadership development, let’s be clear: middle managers hate classroom learning.

They’re too experienced, too time-poor, and too cynical to be talked at.

What works? Targeted, relevant programs that connect the dots between what they’re learning and what they’re actually dealing with at work. When you give middle managers the why – the science and strategy behind the skill – they visibly shift. You can see the motivation click into gear.

Suddenly, it’s not just “here’s a list of leadership behaviours.” It’s “here’s why this one thing matters, and here’s how it changes my performance tomorrow.”

Peer-to-peer learning and supported experimentation should be our focus in 2025. We all thrive when we’re learning from people like us – testing ideas, sharing techniques, getting honest feedback, and building real capability through action.

To-don’t: Mandate 5 days in the office

The idea that office presence equals productivity is outdated and has been debunked time and time again. Commuting chews through valuable hours and office inefficiencies (hello, waiting for the lift and back-to-back meetings) quietly erode performance.

Our research showed meetings used to start seven minutes late. Today, the average delay is just three. That’s four minutes per meeting, recaptured.

Return-to-office mandates aren’t about productivity. They’re about control. And employees see right through it.

Autonomy fuels motivation. Strip it away and you breed disengagement, resentment, and quiet quitting.

Some leaders are patting themselves on the back for getting people back to their desks – blind to the fact that many employees are showing up out of fear, not enthusiasm. And when market conditions improve? Those same employees will remember exactly who trusted them – and who didn’t.

To-don’t: Treat middle managers like one big, homogeneous group

Not all middle managers are the same. Yet too often, they’re lumped together as if leadership impact is tied to job title alone.

It’s not seniority that defines a great middle manager – it’s maturity.

Middle managers operate across a spectrum of leadership impact, with styles that range from administrator to executive in nature. Their effectiveness isn’t determined by how long they’ve been in the role – it’s shaped by their experience, capability, and mindset.

And here’s the truth: seniority does not predict impact. While there’s a loose correlation between seniority and effectiveness, it’s far weaker than most employers assume.

If organisations want to elevate middle management, they need to stop treating them as one size fits all and start understanding where individual managers actually sit on the leadership maturity curve in order to lift their game.

To-don’t: Trash the reputation of your middle managers

Middle managers have a branding problem.

They’ve long been painted as pencil pushers or an unnecessary bloat – so much so that when restructures roll around, the bias to cut them is baked in before anyone even looks at performance.

This reputation doesn’t just affect headcount decisions. It creates a mental barrier – for leaders and for middle managers themselves. When the narrative is that middle management is outdated, a burden and disposable, you’re stripping away their ability to lead with confidence.

You’re not just cutting roles – you’re undermining culture. Because if your own internal messaging frames middle managers as bureaucratic relics, don’t be surprised when they – or those you depend on to follow them – hesitate to step up, drive change, or make bold decisions.

Want better performance from your B-suite or managers? Start by rebranding the role. Treat it as the critical engine room of the organisation – not a layer to be tolerated but a lever to be empowered.

To-don’t : Leave middle managers’ roles undefined

We’ve never actually nailed down what middle managers are meant to be.

Since Abraham Zaleznik’s famous 1977 essay asked whether managers and leaders are different, we’ve basically accepted that managers manage and leaders lead. But the truth is, in today’s organisations, that line is completely blurred – and the consequences are showing.

At best, middle managers have historically been seen as administrators. At worst, they’ve been treated like inbox traffic controllers. Meanwhile, “executive” has always meant leadership, vision, and decision making.

But here’s what’s happened: the executive role has bled down.

Middle managers are expected to drive strategy, provide visibility, manage risk, influence outcomes, engage teams, and yes – still do the admin.

And yet, the biggest complaint I hear from the C-suite?

“Why aren’t middle managers making decisions, Why aren’t they more strategic?”

Well – maybe because we never told them that was their job until now.

We’ve turned the middle manager role into a catch-all – a vague bundle of responsibilities with sky-high expectations and no clear definition.

If you want middle managers to lead, you have to define what leadership actually looks like at their level. Otherwise, we’re setting them up to fail – and then blaming them when they do.

Rebecca Houghton is the founder of BoldHR.