The Manager Development Gap
Author: Admin
Your organization probably has a coaching program. And if you’re being honest, you probably know it isn’t quite delivering what you hoped. You’re not alone.
Fresh research from the HR Research Institute’s Future of Coaching and Mentoring for Leadership 2026 puts hard numbers on a problem most HR leaders already feel in their gut: the gap between having a coaching program and having one that genuinely works is wide, and it’s costing organizations more than they realize.
- 70% of employee engagement is directly tied to managers
- 50% of managers are currently seeking or open to new roles
- <50% of managers have received any meaningful development training
Sources: Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2025; Visier Workforce Trends 2025
What the 2026 Data Actually Shows
The HR Research Institute surveyed 177 HR professionals, 75% from mid-sized and large organizations. The findings are less shocking than they are clarifying.
31% of organizations have no formal coaching program at all 38% have no formal mentoring program 25% don’t measure their coaching programs in any meaningful way 58% cite not devoting enough time as their top barrier 39% have no defined or measurable outcomes guiding the work
When coaching isn’t tied to business outcomes and isn’t embedded in the talent system, it gets treated as optional. Optional programs are the first to go when things get tight.
The Middle Manager Problem
Middle managers are doing the most coaching in most organizations. They’re also among the least likely to receive any training in how to do it well.
A Gartner study found that 85% of first-time managers receive no formal leadership training. Nearly half of managers with more than ten years of experience report only about nine total hours of training across their entire tenure.
Yet every day, those same managers are expected to coach across generational and cultural differences, build psychological safety across hybrid teams, adapt their approach to each individual on their team, and keep their own engagement intact while managing everyone else’s.
The people most responsible for coaching others are themselves the least coached. That’s the gap this guide is built to close.
What High-Performing Organizations Do Differently
The research compared organizations where coaching strongly contributed to business success against those where it didn’t. Four things consistently set them apart.
They commit long-term. High performers are twice as likely to have had programs in place for five or more years. Coaching culture takes time. Organizations that treat it as a short-term fix rarely see results that compound.
They measure rigorously. Only 13% of high performers don’t measure their programs at all, compared to 33% of lower performers. Measurement makes programs defensible and improvable.
They embed coaching in the talent system. High performers tie coaching to performance reviews (46% vs. 28%) and succession planning (39% vs. 17%). When coaching is structural, it survives budget pressures.
They actually train the coaches. Only 30% of organizations overall train leaders in coaching skills. Among high performers, that figure nearly doubles.
What’s Inside This Guide
Four strategies. Real data. And a practical look at how AI is helping managers execute all of it every day — not just when the calendar says so.
01 — Build Coaching into the Culture, Not Just the Calendar
02 — Train Managers to Coach Across Differences, Not Just Manage
03 — Create Psychological Safety as a Leadership Practice
04 — Measure What Matters and Use Data to Get Better
Each strategy includes an “AI in Action with Ask Aura” section showing what this looks like inside the tools managers already use — Slack, Teams, Gmail — every single day.
74% of managers say they wish they had more tools to help them lead across generational and cultural lines. Ask Aura is built for exactly that — not as a replacement for human connection, but as the always-on partner that helps managers build skills in the moments that actually count.
Ask Aura by Humantelligence delivers real-time, AI-powered coaching directly into managers’ daily workflows — built on psychometric science and designed to make leadership development practical, personalized, and measurable.