More than 4 out of 5 of bosses are 'accidental managers' who stumble into leadership with little training, a UK survey found

• Around 82% of bosses lack any formal leadership or management training and qualifications.
• A new survey by the Chartered Management Institute surveyed over 4,500 managers and workers in the UK.
• Half of the managers surveyed said promotions are given based on internal relationships over performance.

Your manager and senior leaders at your company are unlikely to have any formal qualifications or training for that position, a worrying new survey has found.

The Chartered Management Institute released a nationwide study of UK management and leadership in October. It commissioned YouGov to survey over 4,500 managers and employees online in June.

It found that although one in four people in the workforce takes on management responsibilities, 82% of those who become managers have little training or qualification. They're called "accidental managers," in the survey.

Just over half of managers said they don't hold any management or leadership qualifications and a third said they had never received formal management and leadership training. This also applied to 26% of senior managers and leaders.

The high number of workers promoted to leadership positions without real experience can partly be attributed to favoritism in the workplace, the survey found.

Almost half of the managers said promotions were dished out based on internal relationships and profile rather than ability and performance, per CMI.

Just over a third said people who spent more time in the office with managers were more likely to progress as well. This trend is known as "proximity bias," which sees remote employees overlooked for promotions because they're not as visible to leaders.

Poor managers are contributing to high employee turnover as well. Only 27% of workers rated their manager as highly effective and 37% said they're somewhat effective, the CMI survey showed.

Other findings from the survey included that half of the workers who did not think their manager was effective said they planned to leave in the next 12 months compared to 21% of workers who did see their manager as effective.

Meanwhile, 31% of managers and 28% of workers had left a job because of a negative relationship with their boss.

A 2015 Gallup study of 2.5 million manager-led teams in 195 countries found that only 1 in 10 people have the right qualities to be a successful leader.

René Carayol, an executive coach, previously told Insider that the most common mistake new managers make is thinking they have to be "the cleverest person in the room."

Carayol stressed that IQ is less important than emotional intelligence and a lack of empathy will cause workers to leave in droves.

He said managers don't need to have answers to every question, instead "their job is to create an environment where other people can fly."