---
title: Who Supports the Managers Everyone Else Turns To?
description: Explore the crucial support gap for frontline managers and discover how mentoring can enhance leadership effectiveness and employee engagement in organizations.
---

[LifeGuides Resources](https://wellbeing.lifeguides.com/resources)

# [Who Supports the Managers Everyone Else Turns To?](https://wellbeing.lifeguides.com/resources/who-supports-the-managers-everyone-else-turns-to)

 Written by [Macie Marinetto, Head of Marketing](https://wellbeing.lifeguides.com/resources/author/macie-marinetto-head-of-marketing) | Oct 23, 2026, 3:20:22 PM

# Who Supports the Managers Everyone Turns To? A Conversation with Dr. Dave Hester

Frontline managers are expected to guide their teams through conflict, change, and everyday pressures. But who helps managers navigate those same challenges?

That question is central to *The $8.9 Trillion Blind Spot: Why Unsupported Managers Drain Engagement and Revenue*, a new white paper by[Dr. David M. Hester, Jr., Ph.D., LMHC](https://www.linkedin.com/in/go4dave/).

Known as Dr. Dave, he serves as Vice President, Guides Community at LifeGuides, where he supports scalable, human-driven mentorship and workplace well-being initiatives. In partnership with the SHRM, he contributes to the [**SHRM People Manager Qualification plus Professional Mentoring (PMQ+)**](http://lifeguides.com/pmq+) program, which provides structured mentoring and professional development to frontline and mid-level managers.

We asked Dr. Dave about the support gap facing managers and what organizations can do to close it.

###### ***Macie:****Your white paper argues that frontline managers are often asked to support everyone else without receiving enough support themselves. What does that look like in practice?*

Dr. Dave: Industry-specific context matters. For example, in the tech industry, an employee can start out as a software analyst, focusing on individual contributor-level responsibilities, including managing their own workload and production, as well as their personal emotions. Then, they may be promoted to a leadership position. Suddenly, the expectations on that person change overnight.

I hear this all the time from a CTO or Technical Director with 15+ years of leadership experience: “They should know how to lead.” Executives have high expectations of the former analysts, but they often don't back those expectations with investment in ongoing leadership development and focused support.

In my experience as an executive coach, one key issue organizations face is the transition from being part of a team to leading one. In many instances, they are flummoxed by the expectations to support their team, develop and guide product development, all while receiving minimal support from higher-ups.

But where are these new leaders getting help? In practice, frontline managers need access to support tools, programs, and resources that help them grow into their role and ultimately take the next step in leadership.

***Macie:*** *The paper calls for wider access to mentoring, including for early-career and remote managers. What barriers do organizations need to address to make that possible?*

Dr. Dave: The first barrier is fear of change. Organizations move slowly — many are still running playbooks from 30 years ago. It’s not the 1990s or 1960s anymore. The old days of working yourself to the bone just to be a “company person” are gone. Organizations need to stop seeing employees as just a means to an end. People have been valued for their output, not for being human.

The second barrier is the inequality built into the traditional organizational hierarchy. Top executives get better healthcare, sabbaticals, professional coaches, and other perks. Early career managers get a little less. Entry-level employees get even less.

***Macie:**Why has mentoring traditionally been easier to access for executives than for the managers leading teams day to day?***

Dr. Dave: Honestly, I’m not sure why this happens, but executives always seem to have the most resources. They have access to capital; they’re in rooms with other leaders, researchers, and business owners, and they often get their own personal executive leadership coaches. They’re surrounded by opportunities to grow.

Entry-level employees and managers? Not so much. Sure, there’s usually onboarding or a new-employee buddy shadowing experience when someone starts a new job, but it’s not the same.

Our peer-to-peer and Professional Mentoring model at LifeGuides is directly informed by organizational leaders seeking to provide meaningful support across leadership ranks, including managers early in their careers.

Early on, I remember speaking with the CEO of a multinational retail chain at an event we were both attending. They described how valuable it was to connect with other leaders and learn from their peers. They felt energized, inspired, and encouraged by the perspectives they gained. Their mood shifted—lifted, even—after spending time with a community of peers.

I asked whether it would be valuable to make that kind of connection available more broadly throughout their company. Could their managers benefit from the same opportunity to exchange perspectives and work through challenges with someone who understood their experience?

The answer was an immediate yes. The challenge, they explained, was extending those opportunities across a large workforce and making them accessible when people needed support in their everyday work.

At LifeGuides, we built our virtual peer-to-peer and Professional Mentoring model to meet that need, making personalized support accessible at enterprise scale for leaders at every level and the broader workforce.

***Macie: You describe a gap between learning a management skill and using it when a difficult situation arises. Where do you see that gap most often?***

Dr. Dave: I see this gap most often during conflict and change, but leaders and entrepreneurs face it almost every day. I remember learning how to bridge the gap between knowledge and application from one of my own business mentors, Rob Lederer.

Lederer, CEO of [Responsible Business Alliance](https://www.responsiblebusiness.org/) and a renowned executive development consultant, walked us through case studies, talked about the theory, and did some light experiments, but it wasn’t until I had to use it in real life, in the moment, that it became a challenge to turn the content and knowledge into practice. He taught me his Five Fingers of Communication method, which helped me notice fractures in comprehension and understanding. But like any skill, it takes more than point-in-time training to actually put those skills to work. You have to practice, in real time, and keep adjusting as you go.

There’s always a gap between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is information you can use, but wisdom is knowing when, how, and why to use it.

***Macie: What can a mentor offer a manager in a moment of stress or uncertainty that a training course alone may not provide?***

Dr. Dave: When new managers get stressed by difficult situations and their leadership skills are put to the test, a mentor can offer one of the most valuable, finite resources we have as humans: attention. In times of uncertainty, someone’s full, undivided attention gives them the assurance and confidence they need to work through whatever situation is at hand.

And you can’t always get that from an internal mentoring program or from a supervisor, whose time and attention are also pulled toward their own teams and stressors.

***Macie: LifeGuides was built on the premise of matching people to Guides and Mentors whose experience is relevant to what they’re facing. Why does that shared experience matter?***

Dr. Dave: Although I’ve mentored professionals for over a decade, and despite all my training, CEUs, research, and thousands of hours in clinical practice, I’ll never fully understand what it’s like to be a woman in corporate America. I lack the actual lived experience of what most women face every day.

Of course, I can make an effort each day to be a better ally, reduce my biases, and speak out against destructive behavior; yet I still can't fully understand what they are going through. I have coached women, men who present as femme, non-binary people, and those who are in the process of transitioning. I am able to do this because of my background in culturally informed and trauma-informed care. In these situations, I can offer my expertise, which helps in most cases, but it doesn’t always have the same impact as when my lived experience matches theirs.

That is the experience I want for the women I mentor, and it is the one thing I can't give them myself. Expertise and allyship are invaluable, and both matter, but a woman climbing the ladder in corporate America deserves the option to talk to someone who has stood on those same rungs. She doesn't have to explain herself first. She can start with what she actually needs.

I know the difference because I have felt it from the other side. For example, when I mentor a cis-hetero Black executive, we are both navigating an environment that doesn't always protect marginalized groups and often uses parts of our identity for corporate benefit. The mentoring means more. We can drop the pretenses and work on change together. That is what shared experience makes possible, and every person in the workplace should be able to access that kind of support when they need it.

***Macie: How should organizations think about the relationship between manager support, employee experience, and business performance? What signs would tell you a program is making a difference?***

Dr. Dave: Start by defining and unifying your language. What signs are you actually concerned about? Are you measuring them? What are the outcomes? When you start there, employee experience improves, and teams become more cohesive because they feel supported by their leaders. That leads to better sales and more creative work.

***Macie: If an HR or learning leader recognizes this support gap but cannot change everything at once, where would you suggest they begin?***

Dr. Dave: Assess, assess, assess. Find out where the thorns are. What’s causing the most pain for your people? Get a clearer sense of the gap. Like I tell my clients: start small, use what works, and then

## **Putting Training into Practice**

Dr. Dave’s white paper argues for giving managers access to 1:1 support as they apply new skills in real time. [**SHRM** **People Manager Qualification + Professional Mentoring by LifeGuides (PMQ+)**](http://lifeguides.com/pmq+) combines SHRM’s manager development program with ongoing Professional Mentoring from LifeGuides, giving managers opportunities to learn, reflect, and seek guidance as real challenges arise.

[**Read Dr. Dave’s white paper**](https://pages.lifeguides.com/the-8.9-trillion-blindspot-access-the-white-paper) to explore the research and ideas behind this approach, or [**learn more about PMQ+**](http://lifeguides.com/pmq+)to see how the program supports managers in practice.

​

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