Earlier in my career, I got my first opportunity to manage a small team.
In order to get the role, a peer (who had trained me about a year prior) and I both interviewed.
As you can imagine, being promoted from peer to manager, put an immediate strain on our relationship.
Over the course of first year, I would ask my former peer if she could take on work and I commonly received one of two responses.
“I don’t have time” or “that’s not a good idea”.
Two things were very clear: my former peer didn’t accept me as her manager and I didn’t know what I was doing (probably making the situation worse).
This experience was arguably one of the hardest ways to become a people leader, moving from peer to manager.
Additionally, I realized there is no playbook on how to lead direct reports.
So, I did what nearly all of us do, I looked for leadership books and watched videos online.
I also tried to find a mentor within the company, but it didn’t materialize.
Fortunately, I had family and friends who shared their leadership learnings.
But overall, I was left to figure it out on my own.
What I’ve learned is my experience is very common. The vast majority of new leaders are left to trial and error to develop as people leaders. Not from a lack of caring, but instead, it’s from a lack of personalized resources.
The gap between accessible options (books, videos, and podcasts) and existing personalized coaching development options is too large, too expensive.
We have accepted this gap in options and in turn, accepted that personalized leadership development is intended for leaders with larger budgets. It’s a luxury.
But here is the consequence of this assumption, like my experience, most leaders miss opportunities to be more effective, to be great leaders.
Their teams and organizations won’t realize their full potential.
And then, we are surprised that our leadership benches are not strong.
In fact, SuccessionIQ in 2025 report that only about 20% of organizations surveyed report high confidence in their leadership succession pipeline.
To close the gap on succession, we need solutions that close the gap for accessible options to grow leaders earlier in their careers at every level.
Thinking back to my first managerial role, I would have loved personalized resources to learn how to lead.
This is exactly our mission with our upcoming Enluma AI leadership development platform.
An approach where new and mid-career leaders get clear actionable and personalized feedback, leverage an AI coach to address specific improvements, take interactive courses, and leverage the community of peers to grow together.
We’re working to close the leadership gap, so more leaders don’t have to figure it out on their own.
If you’d like to learn more about how we’re disrupting leadership development or would like to be part of our upcoming soft launch in March, DM or send a connection request.
Christopher Sprague, PhD, is the CEO and Cofounder of the Enluma Leadership Group.
At Enluma, our success is defined by leaders who actually grow and change behaviors, not just take surveys or courses. By combining analytics and AI with practical, modern, and actionable leadership development, we help leaders and organizations move quickly to action and growth.
If you’d like to learn more, reach out via LinkedIn.