Creating leaders who coach, not command

WE'RE facing a career confidence crisis. Work is changing fast, yet many employees feel stuck. At LinkedIn, our data shows workforce confidence has dropped to a five-year low, and only 15% of employees say their manager has supported them with career planning in the past six months.

- ANEESH RAMAN, TEUILA HANSON

Managers can play a big role in righting the ship by helping employees build the new skills they need to stay relevant and develop into future leaders. But this requires a fundamental shift: transforming managers from task-overseers into coaches who can develop talent and spark the best ideas from their teams.

There are some key steps any company can take now to develop a culture of coaching that starts with their managers, but extends well beyond them.

Coaching development

If you want your managers to become coaches, it starts with coaching them first. Just like elite athletes rely on coaches to reach peak performance, managers also need coaching to unlock their full potential. Coaching is a skill that needs to be intentionally developed. And executives are starting to grasp this opportunity. Nearly 80% of chief HR officers globally agree that managers in the future will spend less time managing tasks and more time coaching teams.