My story...  

Ultimately, my role and purpose are to develop leaders and managers to put an end to toxic, chaotic and harmful management.

For managers to be better at working with their team.  Working with them on the both the transactional and transformational, not just to better the team and the organisation, also to develop themselves. 

I have been part of the corporate world in one shape or another for the best part of my career and I love it. Working within various disciplines; leadership and management trainer, coach, keynote speaker, accounts manager, IT, IT Trainer, project manager, PA.  And within various industries; pensions (Actuaries can be fun!), construction, investment banking, retail, education, manufacturing and more, oh and I had short spells as a barmaid, waitress and hairdresser’s receptionist.   

 In 2004, my passion and purpose became crystal clear, and this was to develop and support managers and leaders to allow their team to soar and not shrivel; and to empower and enable themselves to take ownership for their own career and outcomes.

The greatest influence on my time within my roles were the managers.     I learned quickly that my sense of wellbeing both in work and outside was heavily influenced by my manager.   The great managers allowed me to soar, develop and progress, whilst, working with the awful managers, I shrivelled.  My confidence became non-existent, my work life balance was skewered very much in favour of work.  I felt the constant need to check everything multiple times; I felt inadequate and had a constant knot of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. On both times I happened to have awful managers, I stayed longer than I should have, I was truly miserable and not confident that I was good enough for another role.  However, clearly, I did change roles.  I’ve worked within several management and leadership roles, applying what I gleaned from my past managers on what to do and not to do.  I didn’t always get it right and that was a big learning curve for me.   I knew what I wanted to do; I just didn’t know how.   These experiences led me to take responsibility for my career, and so I banked 7.5% of my salary away every (well, most) months to spend on personal development.   I paid for a ‘Train the trainer’ course to become an IT trainer and so was born my passion for facilitating, there were other various self-funded development courses including a Psychology in leadership degree, coach certification, Prince 2, A1 Assessor,  and more.  I wanted to know and continue want to know as much as I can in order to share. 

In 2004, my passion and purpose became crystal clear, and it was to develop and support managers and leaders to allow their team to soar and not shrivel; and to empower and enable them to take ownership for their own career and outcomes.

 A wee summary below of the milestones...

May 2023, ‘Lead from the back’ (www.margo-manning.com) was launched.  And, The Bute Group was brought under this brand, to give clarity that clients were getting me.  Margo Manning Ltd services include; for businesses we offer tailored leadership and management in-person and online group development programs, 1:1 coaching sessions, as well as Keynote speaking engagements and more.  For individuals there are one-off modules or full eLearning programs, 1:1 coaching programs and more.

June 2021, I went onto write my second book and again, an international no1 bestseller The Step-Up Mindset for Senior Managers.

Not sure if there will be third, possibly will, more than likely, I am glutton for pushing myself way out of my comfort zone.

June 2016, I wrote my first book The Step-Up Mindset for New Managers.  It went onto to become an international no1 bestseller.

2005, The Bute Group was born. The Bute group was all about leadership and management group development and 1:1 coaching. This is your one-stop shop for in-house development, focussed and tailored to your organisation’s and employees’ requirements.