The workplace is undergoing a radical transformation. Generational shifts, technological advances and economic turbulence have created an environment where traditional corporate ladders no longer inspire talent. Today’s employees prioritize purpose, growth, and human value over impressive titles and managerial power.

In the past, successful careers meant ascending narrow departmental rungs, starting from the mail room, and gradually working your way up to an executive corner office. This ladder rewarded conformity — putting in your time and waiting for those gold watches and pension plans.

But modern workers refuse to be cogs in the corporate machine. Instead of chasing promotions, they seek careers where they can unlock their potential. They want managers who are invested in their personal development, not just overseeing operations. Companies that fail to evolve will soon find their best workers seeking opportunities elsewhere.

The solution lies in a coaching culture, where managers shift from issuing top-down orders to collaborating with employees. By adopting a growth mindset across all levels, organizations can increase productivity while keeping top talent engaged and empowered.

The question then becomes: Are your leaders prepared to be effective coaches in this new paradigm? Are they ready to guide employees toward purpose and growth rather than just moving up the ranks? The coming years will test their abilities as never before.

Thankfully, developing a coaching capacity is within reach for managers. Through intentional shifts in mindset and targeted skill-building, leaders can evolve into empowering coaches who get the best from modern talent.

Here are five best practices to train managers on to help them become more impactful coaches.

1. Set Clear Expectations

To develop individuals, leaders need to have a keen understanding of who the individuals of their team are beyond just workers, what do they want to accomplish, what drives their decision making, and what they are willing to contribute.  Understanding this, attributes to being able to set clear expectations together. When managers involve their team members in the process of creating their own performance guidelines in combination with the company’s guidelines, it has a direct effect on their willingness and motivation to actively participate in their growth. Employees are more likely to commit to goals they had a hand in setting.

2. Create Accountability

Setting expectations and plans are great, but without real benchmarks and timelines, individuals are less likely to actualize their plans and experience growth. Accountability between managers as coaches and their individual team members can be established through ongoing conversations. This can be frequent informal development conversations to allow employees to receive consistent feedback and support in real time, in synchroneity with the timelines created during goal setting.

3. Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQ) undergirds the most important component of leadership — building and fostering relationships. Employees are more likely to follow a leader who they believe has a genuine interest in their well-being as an individual. To establish and display emotional intelligence, managers can attune themselves to recognize not only what employees do, but to how they feel about their role and the organization they work for. Leaders who intentionally lead and interact with their teams using empathy create trust, promote productivity and drive employee retention.

4. Active Listening

Often, leaders are expected to provide answers. Thus, it’s easy to get into the habit of listening to prepare a reply instead of listening to understand and hold space. Coaching is about focusing on the individuals of an organization. It is people centric, rather than task oriented. Many employees who have left their organizations prematurely have noted that they did not feel they were heard. This means leaders have an opportunity to shift their focus to active listening. Active listening involves replacing judgment with curiosity, leveraging silence, and offering support and openness to different perspectives. When this is provided, employees feel a space for honest conversation and two-way feedback is provided for them, thus they feel supported and heard.

5. Empower Strengths

Employees don’t want managers who fixate on their weakness. Of course, areas for growth should be acknowledged and understood, but employees whose strengths are maximized and celebrated have a higher rate of growth than those whose challenges are consistently highlighted. A strength-based culture helps attract and keep star talent. Managers as coaches should shift their focus to strength placement. Meaning a good coach helps their coachee identify what they are good at, what’s working well and how they can do more of that. Strengths-based coaching also enables employees to feel a sense of value and belonging, which increases work ethic and engagement.

As the future of work continues to evolve, teaching managers these five fundamentals for effective coaching will help them better support their teams while also driving organizational growth.