Highlights – 11 March

International Women’s Day was another chance for us to celebrate women who are driving excellence in management and leadership. To mark the occasion, Encompass Equality published a landmark report – Women in Leadership: Strategies from FTSE 350 organisations leading the way – in collaboration with CMI. It explores how some of the UK's largest companies are successfully advancing women into senior roles. 

The key message: the progress of women is strongest when senior leaders take visible ownership and accountability, rather than delegating responsibility. You can read a summary of the findings here. 

Supporting younger workers

Young people should be supported to progress, too. Petra Wilton, CMI’s director of policy and public affairs, was quoted in FE News responding to the chancellor’s Spring Statement 2026 and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast that the unemployment rate will rise to 5.3% this year. 

Petra welcomed the chancellor’s commitment to ensuring young people aren’t left behind, but she also sounded a note of caution: “For the Youth Guarantee and apprenticeship pathways to be successful, the government must address the primary driver of workplace retention: the quality of day-to-day management offered to young people… Efforts to help these young people find a path into work will only succeed if the people managing them have the skills they need to get this right.”

To learn more about how high-quality management can boost social mobility, sign up for our webinar ‘The Purpose-Driven Leader’ on 17 March. Katie Kelly CMgr CCMI, chair of the CMI London Board and associate partner at Argon & Co, will host a panel of leaders to explore inclusive management practices, values-led leadership and purposeful career development pathways. 

Championing Chartered status

During Chartered Week (23–27 February), an alliance representing more than 40 chartered and professional bodies sent an open letter to the government, demanding a clearer lead in championing chartered status within the civil service. 

Read more in Civil Service World, where Petra was quoted, noting that the aim of the letter was to “ensure that our civil service and vital public services are defined by their commitment to professional excellence, ethical practice and lifelong learning”.

People come first

Lifelong learning means a lot to recent Chartered Manager of the Week Olusegun Otegbeye CMgr FCMI, who gained Chartered status in May 2025 and has invested in his coaching skills so he can help others flourish. 

“Chartered status means people see me as someone who’s sought after for sound advice,” says Otegbeye, a senior associate planning manager at Mott MacDonald.

He’s not alone. An article in The Times reported on data from CMI that reveals 88% of Chartered Managers reported a positive impact when managing change after gaining their accreditation. 

“Artificial intelligence will change the way we work,” Petra told the newspaper, “but it cannot replace the need for effective and ethical leadership.”

Her point was echoed by French HR website HelloWorkplace, which published an article highlighting CMI’s finding that 50% of employees who consider their manager to be ineffective plan to leave their company within the year.

Returning to Petra’s mention of AI, in this week’s newsletter, we take the spotlight off the wonders of the technology to instead focus on the people working with it. When introducing new tools, you have to lead people through the change. We asked the CMI community’s early AI adopters to share their tips. 

Also in this week’s newsletter, Thiben Kerisnain CMgr MCMI argues that AI is not a neutral technology; it shapes markets, power and expectations. It means reimagining leadership by balancing innovation with responsibility, and systems thinking with adaptability. 

Check-ins check out

Finally, to the timeless value of concrete feedback. A CMI case study from 2018 is featured in the French edition of Forbes in an article on the importance of replacing vague compliments with positive, actionable input. In the case study, Adobe found that the shift from annual reviews to more frequent check-ins – focused on coaching and feedback – cut the number of people quitting by 30%. The company also saved around 80,000 hours of manager time previously absorbed by annual reviews. 

Indeed, we shouldn’t undersell the value of simply staying close to our teams and giving them advice they can actually work with. That will help us hold on to anyone who shows the potential to progress. 

Best,

Matt Roberts CMgr FCMI

Director of membership and professional development, CMI

Image: CMI