From Customer Experience Directors and Operational Managers, right through to Team Leaders, everyone laser-focused on getting the best out of their direct reports can too often deprioritize their own development – to the detriment of the overall customer service strategy.
So, what do you need to put in place to make sure all of your leaders are also getting the support they need to truly thrive? Our Editor – Megan Jones – spoke to Adam Boelke, Clayton Drotsky, and Sue Duris to find out.
1. Stress the Positive Impact of Investing Time in Your Leaders
Too often, problems in the contact centre are looked at in isolation, but if you can highlight where better leadership can address issues collectively, it can really help support your case.
For example, highlighting the impact on overall productivity (and the bottom line!) if you can turn your agents into highly engaged employees through better leadership.
Using compelling statistics and outlined business cases can really help to shift the mindset of the leadership team from firefighting to investing in themselves.
2. Start Up a Mentorship Programme to Home In on Personal Weaknesses
Consider setting up a peer-to-peer mentorship programme to help your leaders better support one another.
This really helps to put regular, personal conversations on the agenda, exploring everything from how they see themselves as a leader, what challenges they are facing, and how to make better use of their time.
You could even discuss work–life balance challenges such as why they feel compelled to check their emails during a family holiday.
“I’m a massive advocate of mentorship! Some of the greatest leadership growth happens when you have a mentor checking in on you, saying, “What are your challenges?” and even more importantly “What are you doing about facing up to these challenges?
That’s why I always recommend a rolling 2-weekly meet-up in any mentorship programme, as it helps to keep these conversations front of mind and drive positive change across the year.” – Clayton Drotsky, Director of Growth Crew Ltd
3. Run a 360-Feedback Programme to Help Leaders See Where They Need to Improve
You could also try running a 360-feedback programme, as getting input from colleagues across the department – including direct reports and key contacts in different teams – can give leaders a well-rounded view of their strengths and weaknesses. They can then get to work on a tailored action plan to improve.
Note, this approach will only work if you have a strong culture of psychological safety, as you really need everyone to be on board with sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly for this to be effective.
If you want to find out more about what contact centres can do to improve the effectiveness of their team leaders, watch our webinar: Boosting Agent and Team Leader Effectiveness in Customer Service
4. Set Aside Regular Time for Leaders to Listen into Customer Conversations
When was the last time your leadership team sat and listened in to customer conversations?
Can’t remember? Then this is another opportunity to help leaders make more informed decisions in their day-to-day work.
This can be a very informal exercise, but setting aside sessions for regular listening – even for just 15 minutes at a time – will help to fill in any gaps anyone has and bring everyone up to the same level. Just make sure to include some unstructured VoC data too.
5. Challenge Leaders With the Question “Are You Too Lost in the Weeds?”
Those in leadership roles, particularly new team leaders and managers, can find themselves too stuck into the day-to-day, carrying on with a lot of tasks and habits they should really have passed on to someone else when they got promoted.
One way to break this habit, and refocus them on their new role and responsibilities, is to get them to pretend they are about to apply for a new management role.
As part of the process, challenge them to evidence what they do day-to-day in two columns:
- Hands on / day-to-day tasks
- Strategic, data-driven leadership tasks
Making this list can help them see in black and white if they are spending too much time “lost in the weeds”, how they might need to rethink their daily to-do list, and any training and support they may need to get there.
You can also find advice on how to spot if your team leaders are chasing metrics, and how to hit the reset button, in our article: Are Your Team Leaders Too Busy Chasing Metrics?
6. Ask Them “Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years’ Time?”
The years can quickly roll into one another working on a busy contact centre floor, and career aspirations can easily fall to the wayside. That’s why it’s equally important to ask your leaders “Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?” and help them make a plan of how to get there.
When there’s a clear vision or goal they can work on – perhaps even regularly checking in with their mentor – they can feel confident that they are slowly but surely investing in themselves and working towards their next promotion.
7. Double-Check Everyone Knows What the Bigger Picture Is
Do all of your leaders understand the WHY behind your current mix of KPIs and other business decisions? Not sure?
Then why not run semi-regular top-up sessions with opportunity for Q&A to make sure all leaders – old and new – across the contact centre are on the same page and there’s no gaps in understanding.
This blanket-sweep approach can really help to patch up any holes in individual learning journeys – without embarrassing anyone or making assumptions!
“It’s about everyone having a better understanding of what’s happening inside their own contact centre and how they can improve.
A lot of times, managers are going through the day-to-day and driving their agents to meet KPIs without understanding the why. It’s so important that all leaders have a firm grasp of the bigger picture.” – Sue Duris, Principal Consultant at M4 Communications, Inc.
If you are looking for ways to make sure your communication skills are top notch, read our article: The 7 Cs of Effective Communication
8. Don’t Be Afraid to Admit You Need Outside Help
If your leadership skills across the board are seriously lacking, a formal training course or workshop could be exactly what you need to kick-start your leadership team’s education. As they say, you don’t know what you don’t know!
If you are struggling to get buy-in for improvements, you may also find this approach makes it a lot harder for anyone to find excuses and skip the session – especially if a guest trainer is on site for one day only!
9. Make Sure All Leaders Are Pulling Together Using the Same Philosophy
Another key consideration is to make sure all leaders receive the same training and are aligned under the same leadership philosophy – even if you need to start from scratch to put everyone through the same training programme.
It’s so important to have a common language for all leaders to be able to reference and pull in the same direction.
10. Set Up an Emerging Leaders Programme
Don’t forget about your emerging leaders too! Setting up a dedicated programme to nurture their potential can boost engagement and employee retention. This has the added benefit of fostering the same strong cultural values across the organization.
“Don’t wait until someone is promoted to start training them on leadership. Bring it forwards to share with people with leadership potential, making sure they get that training too and are being developed in line with the company values.
It really sets everyone up for long-term success!” – Adam Boelke, Founder of the Alignment Advantage Group, and author of the “7 Cs to Success” mastermind course on leadership & culture
For expert advice on getting an agent’s leadership journey off to the best possible start, read our article: How to Prepare Agents for Their First Leadership Role
It’s a Challenging World for Leaders Right Now
Many leaders today inherit workplace cultures or allow them to develop unintentionally, leading to challenges they must now address.
Without proper training, top-performing agents are often promoted to leadership roles under the assumption that their past success will translate into effective team management.
However, leadership requires specific skills – building engagement, trust, and accountability – that don’t come naturally without guidance. Addressing this “last mile” in leadership development is key to unlocking higher productivity, engagement, and overall company performance.
Are You Investing Enough in Your Contact Centre Leaders?
Join our LinkedIn community to share your ideas with us.
With thanks to the following people for sharing their thoughts and experiences for this article:
- Adam Boelke, Founder of the Alignment Advantage Group, and author of the “7 Cs to Success” mastermind course on leadership & culture
- Clayton Drotsky, Director of Growth Crew Ltd
- Sue Duris, Principal Consultant at M4 Communications, Inc
If you are looking for more information on developing your contact centre team leaders, read these articles next:
- Team Leader Experience (TLX) Explained
- How to Coach Resilient Contact Centre Team Leaders
- Train Team Leaders Well
Author: Megan Jones
Reviewed by: Jo Robinson
Published On: 23rd Jun 2025
Read more about - Skills, 360 Feedback, Adam Boelke, Clayton Drotsky, Leadership, Sue Duris, Team Management, Top Story, Training
