How Asylum Welcome helped managers stop performing confidence and start building it.

You promoted a member of your team because they excelled at their work. Six months later, they are still the person everyone turns to when a case gets difficult. However, their one-to-one meetings are becoming less frequent, difficult conversations are continually postponed, and they are still spending most of their time dealing with operational details. On the surface, they seem committed, but in reality, they have not fully transitioned into the management role.

If you can already picture who this is in your organisation, this piece is for you. It is also for you if your managers have been in post for a while, appear to be coping, but have never fully settled into the role.

Asylum Welcome is an Oxford-based charity that has supported refugees, asylum seekers, and vulnerable migrants for thirty years. Its work is practical and intensive, and includes legal advice, housing navigation, English classes, financial support, and food provision. The people it serves are navigating a system that Director Mark Goldring has described as "harsh, even cruel."

Between 2021 and 2023, Asylum Welcome's income nearly tripled (from £748,000 to just over £2 million) as demand for its services surged. The organisation grew its paid staff to meet that demand, which meant asking frontline workers to take on line management for the first time. They were now responsible for enabling others to deliver the work they had previously done themselves.

Goldring joined as Director in April 2020, having previously led Oxfam GB, Mencap, and Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO). In these organisations, there was a well-established management development infrastructure. However, at Asylum Welcome, like at many small charities, this was not the case. This meant employees were managing direct reports without having been taught how, namely, there was no shared approach to one-to-ones, no common understanding of what good management looked like within the organisation, and no structured support to help them develop their management skills. To address this, the charity engaged an external consultancy to design and implement a structured line management programme.

The pattern identified by Goldring at Asylum Welcome is one of the most predictable in the sector. Charities expand because demand increases, but this growth in demand is seldom planned. Instead, it typically arises when a funding round is successful, when policies change, or during a crisis. As a result, the staff promoted to manage are almost always those who were best at frontline work, chosen for their capability as practitioners, and not for any readiness to lead others doing the job they used to do. 

Management capability is one of the areas in which charities most consistently underinvest. The post-pandemic period has highlighted this issue, leading to a sustained increase in demand across many parts of the sector. This has accelerated hiring and promotion cycles, shortening the time organisations typically take to invest in the leaders they need.  Consequently, many charity managers are capable and dedicated, but they are operating without adequate support.

The most common perspective is to see this issue as a skills gap. Managers may lack the ability to conduct effective one-to-one meetings, struggle with delegation, and shy away from difficult conversations. In response, senior leaders often resort to providing more training.

However, the perceived skills gap often stems from a deeper, more challenging-to-identify issue. At Coffee Break Ops, we refer to this as the legitimacy gap. Newly promoted managers may still see themselves primarily as individuals who perform tasks, rather than as leaders who empower others to do the work. In mission-driven organisations, this self-perception is frequently reinforced. For example, when they assist someone navigating the asylum system, it feels like they are doing the important work their organisation exists to serve.

In contrast, tasks such as running a team meeting, drafting a policy, or addressing performance issues with team members may feel like bureaucratic duties. These responsibilities don't resonate as strongly with their sense of purpose, leading to them being deprioritised, whether consciously or unconsciously. This challenge is not unique to Asylum Welcome; it is a common experience for those transitioning into management roles in charities, especially when promotions are based on frontline performance.

Imposter syndrome operates differently from how it's typically described; it's not solely about self-doubt. It involves a specific fear: being perceived as someone who no longer does meaningful work, who is simply going through the motions, like a bureaucrat or a paper-pusher. This feeling of being seen as obsolete can be particularly paralysing in a charity where the mission is both obvious and urgent.

This behaviour manifests in a particular way. The new manager who responds to every challenge, every unfamiliar situation, every question that requires them to think on their feet, with the same two words, "I know." They cannot possibly know, because everything is new to them. But admitting they don't know feels like confirming their deepest fear: that they shouldn't be there at all. So they perform certainty, and in doing so, cut off every route to developing it. You cannot learn your way into a role you are pretending to already understand.

What management training typically fails to do, and what most on-the-job learning also fails to do, is address the conflict that swirls around a newly promoted manager's head. The work they were doing was exciting, and it is why they committed to the charity. They are going to miss that work, whether they know it yet or not, and the question of their identity lurks beneath the surface as they face their new managerial responsibilities.

The problem wasn't that these managers didn't know how to manage. It was that they had yet to decide that managing was their job.

The external consultant assigned to Asylum Welcome started with a focus group.

Before designing any training, the consultant met with Asylum Welcome's managers to discuss the challenges they faced. She asked them where they felt uncertain, what situations posed difficulties, and in which areas they often had to improvise. The training could then be tailored based on their responses.

The programme ran across four months and included seven sessions, comprising five core modules and two supporting elements. The first and last sessions were conducted in person; the opening session aimed to build trust and foster connections among a group of managers who had been working without a shared framework, while the final session provided an opportunity to reflect on the changes that had occurred. The middle sessions were held online. Additionally, a mentoring component was incorporated alongside the training, pairing each participant with a mentor who was working through the same material.

The spacing was intentional. By spreading the content out, learning and application were integrated, giving learners time to practice what they learned, see what applying it entailed, and then bring that experience back to the next session. 

Goldring's approach to framing the training was just as important as the programme design itself. He communicated that time spent in the training room was a valuable part of developing as a manager, and is part of the job rather than a distraction from it. This message from the director offered something that no curriculum could.

When the consultant arrived for a scheduled session, they found that a tool introduced in the previous session had already been implemented by managers across their teams. This demonstrates not only a significant behavioural change but also a lateral transfer of learning across management levels, beyond the individuals who attended the course. It shows that the shared framework was functioning effectively because the managers were no longer working in isolation; they had a common reference point and the confidence to use it.

Goldring described the shift in terms of how managers handled issues: greater confidence and a new capacity to step outside a situation and consider it in terms of the organisation, not just the immediate problem in front of them, but from reactive to structural. From "what do I do here?" to "what does this tell me about how we're working?"

This distinction is important because frontline work is, by design, reactive: you respond to the person in front of you, the case that comes in, and the immediate need at hand. In contrast, management requires the opposite disposition: actively scanning for patterns, anticipating potential problems before they occur, and creating conditions for a team to function, rather than filling every gap yourself. Transitioning from a reactive to a proactive mindset involves a shift in how you understand your own value and effectiveness in the role. It is one of the clearest signs that someone has begun to accept the identity the role requires, but it is also the thing hardest to teach directly. 

The focus group achieved two significant outcomes. First, it created content that was immediately relevant, helping managers to recognise their own situations within the material being taught. Second, it conveyed an important message: the managers' experiences in their roles should not be seen as problems to be fixed; rather, they should be viewed as the foundation for their work. This is especially meaningful for individuals who may feel uncertain about whether their experiences are valid in the new roles they are trying to adapt to.

The mentoring component was effective because it established a reflective cycle that training alone cannot achieve. A training module provides a framework, but a mentor who has experienced the same transition can demonstrate what it feels like to apply that framework during uncertain moments, especially when things don’t go as planned. This is distinct from mere reassurance or instruction; it involves showing how to embrace the uncertainty that is inherent in the role.

The director's permission structure could easily be dismissed, and it is frequently missing in organisations that commission similar programmes. Goldring didn’t just convey that training was valuable; he emphasised that managing well is legitimate work, equally as important as service delivery. This reframing of perspective cannot come from a training provider; it must be stated by the leadership team whose behaviour the management team is observing. Without this support, even a well-designed programme may falter when service pressures increase. What Goldring offered was not merely a message about the programme; he redefined the purpose of the role itself.

When we consider these three elements together, they address the question of identity that traditional skills training alone cannot resolve. A manager who completes a technical training programme gains knowledge, but a manager who emerges from an environment designed to embrace uncertainty and recognise management as a legitimate practice begins to transform into someone different. The ability to sit in ambiguity without reverting to a false sense of certainty (the “I know” response mentioned earlier) isn’t just a quality of good management. It is what sets apart those who can manage from those who can lead effectively at a senior level.

Not every struggling manager is new to the role. The legitimacy gap discussed here does not only arise at the time of promotion; it can also persist among managers who have been in their positions for months or even years. These individuals may develop coping behaviours that appear competent from the outside. They may hold one-to-one meetings and engage in performance discussions, yet they remain focused on operational details, responding reactively and never quite taking the long-term view. This behaviour can be mistaken for conscientiousness or personal style, but it often reflects an unresolved identity issue.

Before investing in development for established managers, it's essential to ask: Have these individuals truly settled into their roles, or have they merely learned to appear competent?

The questions regarding identity and legitimacy that this programme addressed do not simply go away after one training cycle - they re-emerge under pressure. For example, when there is a sudden spike in demand for services, a manager who has not fully resolved their understanding of their value may cancel one-to-one meetings, postpone difficult conversations, and instead fill their schedule with delivery work. This is not due to forgetting what they have learned; it is because the unresolved identity questions prompt them to prioritise immediate tasks over introspection. 

This means the programme's effects are most durable where the organisation continues to signal, consistently and through behaviour (not just once before training starts), that managing well is important. From an organisational perspective, this manifests in how leaders talk about the work, in how performance is recognised, and in whether management time is protected in challenging situations.

The focus group starting point, for all its value, only captures what staff know they find difficult. Often, the legitimacy gap is not visible to those who experience it. A manager who performs certainty may not even realise they are doing so; they genuinely believe they are managing well. Creating a programme that uncovers issues staff are not yet aware of is a more complex task than responding to what they say they need.

The approach relies on having a cohesive management team that can come together to implement a shared programme. When line management responsibilities are divided across sites, services, or teams of varying sizes, coordinating efforts becomes more challenging, and the benefits of a common language diminish.

The following conditions have been inferred from the Asylum Welcome programme, and are also typically required to achieve similar success. These conditions are transferable to charities of any size. 

Asylum Welcome was already considering the next cohort of staff for development, including coordinators and individuals with lived experience of the system the charity aims to help people navigate.

That poses a different challenge to the one this programme was designed to address. Most management development focuses on role transitions, specifically, how to move from doing tasks to managing those who do them. But what happens when the person heading towards leadership is not only taking on a new role, but is doing so in an organisation whose purpose is tied closely to their own story?

The question then is not only how to help someone build management confidence; it is how to build a management culture that staff can embrace without feeling they have to compromise their identity to do so. Is “development”, then, a subtle pressure for them to conform to management norms that they did not help create?  

If someone has to shed part of themselves to be seen as leadership material, what exactly is the organisation rewarding?

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