New "Store Manager in Training" role instead of Store Lead

Hey all, I work O/N and our Store Manager had a meeting and said that the Store Lead role is getting taken away by the 31st of July and all store leads were given some kinda deal/ultimatum (he didn't specify.) Does anyone have any more info on this new role because I'm confused. He said to many people weren't going for store manager roles and this was a way to help managers transition into being a store manager and he specified it was specifically to help out of company hires get used to Walmarts rules and what not. Why would they be so focused on out of company hires when there's plenty of people to train and move to the store lead position and then store manager that already work for the company?