I’ve yet to find a company that puts someone in a management position hoping that person fails. Rather, companies usually either hire or promote individuals they believe can build a team, leverage it, and get results. Expectations are high for what a new manager can and should do, so it’s always a huge disappointment when they decide someone was a bad choice.

“Too bad Tim didn’t make it. Turns out he just wasn’t a good manager.”

But guess what? Far too often, organizations do little or nothing to ensure new managers succeed. In fact, the mistakes I’ve seen are so universal and consistent, I sometimes wonder if companies are following some sort of “formula” for turning out lousy managers. If so, here’s what I think it would look like:

Poor Selection + Inadequate Training + Unclear Expectations + Little Support = Lousy Manager

Poor selection is what happens when you choose someone for a management role for the wrong reasons. Maybe the person is your best “doer,” so you promote her to run the department without considering whether she has the very different competencies required to get results through others. Or, perhaps you select someone because he’s been there longer than anyone else and you think you owe it to him. It could be that you hire someone from outside who has a good track record but a style totally at odds with your organization’s culture. Whatever the bad reason, you start out with a round peg in a square hole and it usually goes downhill from there.

Inadequate training is very common and often causes people with good potential to stall or flounder. The set of skills you need to manage effectively (ability to hire, train, manage, motivate, lead, communicate, hold people accountable, etc.) is not intuitive and can certainly be taught. But many new managers get thrown into their roles with minimal, if any, training to ensure they can effectively navigate the “people” side of their jobs. Many get off to a bad start because they make mistakes that could have been prevented if they’d only be trained.

Unclear expectations can derail any new hire, but they’re especially damaging to new managers. Being told to “get this department back on track” or “improve customer satisfaction and profits in this division” are not examples of clear expectations. They’re too broad and hard to measure (What exactly does improve look like? 1 percent? 10 percent? 50 percent?). Sometimes this is a communication issue, but in some instances the company only has a vague idea of what they want to begin with.

Finally, little support causes new managers to feel like they’re being left on their own to sink or swim. They don’t have anyone giving them advice on how to acclimate to the team they inherit, how to build relationships with their fellow managers, or how to prioritize and address immediate challenges. If the individual was promoted internally, no one coaches him on the tricky scenario of transitioning from being part of a team to leading it. And feedback is often minimal, causing the new manager to wonder, “Am I doing this right?”

So I guess it’s no surprise when I see far too many new managers floundering, not meeting expectations and ultimately being targeted for replacement. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Taking each element of the above formula and turning it upside down (better selection, effective management training, clear expectations, and supportive coaching from the start) would yield a much different outcome.

Have you seen situations where companies created their own lousy managers? What has your organization done to set new managers up to succeed? Share your experiences in the comments section below.