Employees do not have confidence in their leaders, according to new research from Taleo.

The research shows that only 38% of employees are confident that their leaders and senior managers will steer their firm through the recession, while the same number (38%) had leaders in their companies that were promoted internally, with just one third of future leaders coming through leadership programmes.

Alice Snell, vice president, Taleo Research, says: “To have the right people in place at the right time, companies must have a robust talent management strategy -enabling leaders who strengthen an organisation to be identified, developed, and retained.”

And as if to highlight the importance of strong leadership, Tesco announced today that over the next year, it will increase expenditure on leadership development by 23% to £3m to develop senior managers and directors through its Tesco Academy.