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Why managers need their own IDP
Managers shape culture, engagement, and the career paths of the people around them. If they do not grow, the whole team stalls. The IDP is the artefact that makes that growth visible, time-bound, and supportable.
Most managers were promoted for technical strength, not people-development skill. The manager IDP follows the same structure as any individual development plan (goal, assessment, 70/20/10 actions, timeline, support) but the content is weighted toward leadership behaviours: delegation, coaching, difficult conversations, strategic thinking. For HR, the manager IDP is the bridge between business strategy and named-individual growth, which is the only kind of development that produces measurable change.
What to assess: the 5 execution dimensions of a manager
Before you write the IDP, name what good looks like for the role. Manager IDPs fail when the goals are personality traits ('be more inspiring') rather than observable execution behaviours. The manager development scorecard Huneety uses with consulting clients breaks manager execution into five dimensions, all of which are observable in a manager's calendar, their 1:1 notes, or their team's outputs.
- 1Goal-setting and execution discipline How the manager sets team goals (KPIs or OKRs), turns them into weekly priorities, and holds the team to them. Observable in the quality of quarterly goals and how often they are revisited versus rewritten.
- 2Management rhythm 1:1 cadence, follow-up discipline, meeting quality, standup/retro structure. Observable in whether meetings move decisions or produce paperwork.
- 3Feedback and coaching habits How the manager runs feedback conversations, praises direct reports publicly, addresses underperformance privately, and coaches in the moment versus batching until the annual review.
- 4Accountability and follow-through Whether commitments are written, tracked, and closed out, or whether the team quietly learns that deadlines are optional. Observable in missed-commitment rate and how it trends across quarters.
- 5Team development practices Whether the manager runs structured development for every direct report, with named competency targets and quarterly reviews. This is the dimension the manager IDP most directly improves.
These five dimensions are the scaffolding for the Monday Simon Manager Development Program that Huneety's founder runs with HR leadership teams. The scorecard is a diagnostic, not a final grade. Use it once per year to identify which dimension is the organisation's weakest, then have every manager IDP target that dimension for at least one cycle.
The 5 parts of a strong manager IDP
Writing an IDP for a manager does not need to be complicated, but it does need structure. Five parts, in order. Skip any one and the plan loses traction.
- 1Clear development goal Tied to a specific competency (delegation, coaching, strategic thinking), never vague 'be a better leader'. Write it so progress is observable.
- 2Current assessment of strengths and gaps Use 360 feedback, performance review data, or team engagement results. Objective data, not impressionistic. HR provides the framework so the assessment is consistent across managers.
- 370/20/10 action plan Experience (70%) is a real stretch assignment. Exposure (20%) is structured feedback or mentoring. Education (10%) is one focused course that supplies the vocabulary the stretch assignment needs. Never 'send to a course'.
- 4Timelines and accountability Quarterly milestones, embedded in existing 1:1s rather than a separate HR process. Every action has a date or an 'ongoing' cadence.
- 5HR and senior leadership support Name the resources (coaching budget, mentors, programs). Senior leaders model the practice publicly. If development is not visible at the top, it will not stick in the middle.
For the deeper treatment of the action-plan layer, the 70/20/10 framework walks through why the three channels reinforce each other and what goes wrong when you skip the 20 percent.
A worked example: a first-time manager working on delegation
Goal: improve ability to delegate effectively. Current level 2 of 5 on Delegation (Dreyfus advanced beginner). Target level 3.5 in two quarters. The plan is short on purpose. Eight actions, three milestones. A manager IDP that runs to 30 items is a wish list, not a development plan.
- 170% on the job Q1: hand off the quarterly planning workshop to a senior team member end-to-end. Q2: delegate a cross-functional project with monthly milestone reviews. Build a RACI for the team's top 3 initiatives by end of month 2.
- 220% from others Bi-weekly coaching with an internal senior peer recognised for delegation. Monthly anonymous team pulse tracking how often the manager is pulled into decisions they should have delegated.
- 310% formal One short course on coaching conversations. One book on delegation and trust. No more than that. The 10 percent is vocabulary support, not the main lever.
- 4Review cadence Quarterly review with the manager-of-manager, using the team pulse plus an observable behaviour rubric. Six-month re-baseline on the Delegation competency.
Inside Huneety, the same plan is generated from the manager's assessment gap, pre-structured in the 70/20/10 format, and surfaced to the manager-of-manager during quarterly review. The mental model does not change. The form lookup does.
Individual Development Plan
Sarah Chen
Lead the Q3 cross-team initiative
Own the next quarterly business review
Bi-weekly 1:1 with VP Strategy
Strategic Leadership 101
The same 70/20/10 structure, auto-generated from a Huneety assessment. Managers review, employees tick off completions, and progress rolls up to HR dashboards.
Manager IDPs generated from assessment gaps
Competency gaps pre-fill the 70/20/10 plan. Manager-of-manager approves in minutes. Quarterly status rolls up to HR, not to the inbox.
HR's 4 practices that decide whether manager IDPs land
Even the best template fails if HR does not create the environment around it. Four practices separate programs that produce development from programs that produce paperwork.
- 1Provide frameworks, not checklists Give managers a clear structure but let them personalise it. A short workshop on how to identify real development goals makes a measurable difference in plan quality versus handing out a form.
- 2Integrate IDPs with performance management Do not make IDPs a separate annual exercise. Link them to 1:1s, goal-setting, and reviews so the plan shows up in conversations that already happen. IDPs that live in a parallel HR process quietly die.
- 3Measure outcomes, not just completion The question is not 'did the manager attend training'. It is 'did the manager delegate more, did the team show improvement'. Use behavioural indicators and team feedback, not compliance metrics.
- 4Model development at the top If senior leaders take their own IDPs seriously, managers follow. Culture follows what leaders do, not what HR says. A C-suite IDP made visible is the single strongest behavioural signal in the program.
From form-in-the-HRIS to manager development system
The reason manager IDPs stall at 50 people is not the template. It is the file management: version drift, lost quarterly trackers, dashboards nobody reads, and a gap between the assessment data and the action plan that every HR team quietly bridges by hand.
Huneety closes the loop. Manager IDPs generate from competency-gap data, pre-structured in the 70/20/10 format, with quarterly status rolling up to a single HR dashboard. If you are starting without a platform, the free Excel template gives you the same structure for your first cycle with 5 to 10 managers.
QUICK ANSWERS
Quick answers
- How is a manager IDP different from a regular IDP?
- Same structure (goal, assessment, 70/20/10, timeline, support), but the content is weighted toward people-development behaviours rather than technical skill. A junior engineer's IDP might focus on architectural review; a new engineering manager's IDP focuses on running 1:1s, delegation, and giving feedback. The framework is identical; the competencies are different.
- How long should a manager IDP be?
- Short enough that the manager can recite it. Typically 8 to 12 specific actions across the 70/20/10 split, with 2 to 3 milestones. A plan with 30 line items is a wish list, not a development plan. Concentration is what produces behaviour change.
- Who owns the manager IDP?
- The manager owns the goal. HR and the manager-of-manager own the support. The plan is co-written. HR provides the template, the framework, and the escalation path when the plan stalls. The manager-of-manager runs the quarterly review. When HR owns both, the IDP becomes an HR program rather than a development tool.
- How often should a manager IDP be reviewed?
- Quarterly. Annual reviews are too slow for any meaningful behaviour change. Quarterly check-ins keep the 70 percent on track and let the blend adjust as the manager develops. The check-in goes on the existing 1:1 calendar, not in a parallel HR process.
Continue learning
70/20/10 Framework
The history, the research, and a practical guide to balancing the three categories in real plans.
Read the guide
IDP Templates
Free downloadable IDP templates by role — manager, IC, technical leader, first-time manager.
Read the guide
Gap Analysis for IDPs
How to translate assessment results into the two or three priority gaps that anchor every plan.
Read the guide