Managers have a huge impact on employee engagement. In fact, Gallup research shows that managers account for 70% of the difference in team engagement levels. When managers show up as strong coaches — offering clear feedback, support and growth opportunities — their teams are more motivated, productive and loyal.

Megan Marshall, managing partner at AIIR Consulting, says that it’s important for managers to develop coaching skills due to the clear benefits in improving employee engagement, decreasing turnover and establishing a coaching culture that prioritizes employee development along with meeting business objectives.

Learning and development (L&D) teams play a critical role in equipping managers with the coaching skills they need to lead effectively, offering targeted training and support to help managers build trust, foster growth and drive stronger performance across their teams.

Training Managers to Become Coaches

Helping managers become better coaches takes more than just telling them to “coach more.” It requires giving them clear examples, practical tools and helping them visualize what great coaching looks like. Ronda Bowman, vice president of customer and employee learning at Stanley Black and Decker, shares that for L&D to help their managers improve their coaching skills, they must first identify the skills that make up a coach.

For example, Bowman emphasizes that a critical part of effective coaching is being an active listener. She explains that this goes beyond simply repeating what the learner says — it means listening for subtleties and asking thoughtful questions that spark reflection and awareness in the team member.

Since coaching is hands-on and results-driven, managers will need to know how to not only listen to their employees and encourage developmental growth but also set goals and track progress improvement.

To truly prepare managers to succeed as coaches, L&D must do more than instruct — they must show managers how to model these five key attributes in their daily leadership.

5 Coaching Skills Your Managers Need

1. Goal-setting and development planning.

To drive stronger performance and help their teams meet business goals, managers must be able to accurately assess skill gaps and set clear development goals that lead to meaningful improvement. L&D leaders must show their managers how to:

• Set clear goals: Help employees define specific, achievable objectives tied to their role and growth.
• Create development plans: Collaborate with employees to map out skill-building activities and career growth steps.

2. Feedback and recognition.

Giving feedback and recognizing strong performance is a core responsibility for every manager. To support this, L&D leaders must model what effective feedback looks like and guide managers in building the skill.

Marshall explains that feedback training should begin by having managers reflect on the best feedback they’ve personally received, helping them draw from existing experience. From there, they practice moving beyond vague praise like “great presentation” to offering clear, constructive suggestions for improvement.

The goal is to build confidence, equip managers with practical tools and create space for peer-to-peer practice, accountability and shared learning. To embody the role of a coach, managers must learn to:

• Give regular feedback: Offer timely, specific and actionable feedback in real time, not just in formal reviews.
• Recognize strengths: Call out and encourage employees’ unique skills to boost confidence and engagement.
• Celebrate progress: Acknowledge small wins and growth milestones to build a positive, motivating environment.

3. Coaching for critical thinking.

Managers should know how to coach their employees in critical thinking so teams can make smarter decisions, solve problems independently and adapt more confidently in fast-changing environments. L&D leaders should show their leaders how to:

• Ask powerful questions: Use open-ended questions to help employees reflect, solve problems and find their own solutions.
• Encourage problem-solving: Resist providing immediate answers; guide employees to think creatively and independently.

4. Providing support and modeling growth.

When managers model a growth mindset, they can encourage employees to take initiative in their own development and view challenges as opportunities. As effective coaches to their employees, this can look like:

• Offering real-time support: Step in during challenges with immediate coaching and hands-on help.
• Modeling learning behavior: Demonstrate your own commitment to growth and lifelong learning to inspire your team.

5. Building trust and reliability.

Managers must coach through consistent actions, so employees feel secure, valued and motivated to fully engage with their work. As a coaching skill, managers must learn how to:

• Build trust through consistency: Follow through on commitments and maintain transparency to earn employees’ long-term trust.

Implementing the Training

To instill these skills in your managers, you will need to plan and design continuous learning initiatives.

Marshall shares some great ideas on how to facilitate management training based on her company’s change framework — Assess, Insight, Implementation and Reinforcement, with reinforcement being the most critical for long-term learning and behavior change.

Here’s how to implement the training based on the change framework:

• Build belief in the training. This can be as simple as a brief kickoff that explains why the organization is investing in the program and what success looks like.
• Provide hands-on skill-building, ideally through a mix of virtual and in-person sessions.
• Reinforcement is key. This can include group coaching, peer discussions or ongoing nudges — short messages delivered via email or apps that prompt learners to reflect or apply something in the flow of work. Some organizations also use “missions,” which are practical activities that learners complete and later discuss in coaching sessions. Group coaching can be facilitated by a coach or guided peer conversations using structured prompts. While one-on-one coaching isn’t always cost-effective, it’s one of the most powerful tools for personalized reinforcement. Marshall says that it can help individuals apply what they’ve learned, reflect on what worked or didn’t and make meaningful progress.

When it comes to training managers to become better coaches, Bowman recommends sharing any coaching framework with managers upfront to clarify where they should focus their efforts. Lastly, she recommends that L&D leaders “focus on a few key skills, utilize a scenario that is real for the learners and role play.” She emphasizes the importance of consistent practice to reinforce new coaching behaviors over time.

Equipping managers to coach well isn’t optional — it’s essential for building teams that perform, grow and stay. By giving managers clear examples, tools and real-world practice, L&D can turn coaching from an abstract idea into a daily leadership habit. The more managers coach with clarity, consistency and care, the stronger their teams — and the entire organization — will become.