New Research Says Your Managers Can’t Coach
A new report landed this month, and it is brutal.
LifeLabs Learning surveyed more than 20,000 HR professionals, business leaders, and workshop participants for its
2026 Mid-Year Workplace Trends Report. When asked to rate their managers’ ability to coach and give feedback, 56% scored them a 5 out of 10 or lower. Only 14% put their managers in the 8 to 10 range.
Every consultant in America is about to sell a coaching workshop off that number, but read one line further, and you’ll see why most of them will fail.
The researchers say capability is only part of the picture. Many managers know how to coach, yet struggle to make time for it.
We Keep Training a Skills Problem When It’s Really a Time Problem
Picture the manager in your building who came back from a two-day workshop genuinely fired up. New questions to ask. A framework for feedback. Real intention.
Then Monday happened. Nothing was taken off her plate to make room for this newly developed skill. Her calendar was already full when she left, and it was even more full when she got back.
Six weeks later, she’s still not coaching anyone. Not because she forgot the skill. Because there is no hour in her week where it could physically occur.
You did not have an untrained manager. You had a manager with no available time, and you spent your development budget confirming just that.
The Question Nobody Asks Before Investing In Training
Here’s what changes the outcome, and it costs absolutely nothing…
Before you approve another program, ask what will be removed. Not what will be added.
If the honest answer is nothing, you’re not investing in development. You’re buying a very expensive reminder that you don’t have time for it.
This is what separates a
Destination Workplace® from a company with an impressive training line item. One protects the time. The other purchases the intention and hopes it survives contact with a Monday.
Build What We Call 'Decisive Action'
A Bar Raiser™ decides whether good intentions will actually get scheduled or never happen. It’s what we call ‘Decisive Action’, and it’s one of the 12 Bar Raiser™ traits that help you execute faster.
A Tolerator agrees the coaching matters and waits for a calmer quarter to make room for it. That quarter has never once arrived in the history of business. A Bar Raiser™ decides once, protects the hour, and stops re-litigating it every time something urgent shows up.
Tomorrow's Move
1. Pick one manager and open their calendar with them.
2. Find one recurring meeting that could be shorter, asynchronous, or gone entirely. Kill it.
3. Then put a standing one-on-one in that exact slot with a name on it.
You just did more for their coaching ability than a certificate would have.
SHARE THIS!
If you have ever come back from a great workshop and never used a word of it, you already know this isn’t a skills problem. Send this to the leader approving next year’s training budget, before they spend it on the wrong diagnosis.
Bring Betsy In to Speak At Your Conference!
Want your managers developed in a way that actually survives Monday? Betsy delivers her Bar Raisers™ keynote to organizations ready to stop mistaking a full calendar for a skills gap. Check her availability here.
Develop Your Leaders
Ready to build development that sticks? Destination Workplace® builds the leadership development programs that turn managers into Bar Raisers™. See the leadership development programs here.
About Betsy:
Betsy Allen-Manning is the wake-up call you didn't know you needed. She's a high-energy leadership keynote speaker and creator of the Bar Raisers™ Movement: a proprietary system redefining how organizations are approaching performance, leadership, and culture. Featured on FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC, and TEDx, Betsy works with organizations across corporate, franchise, association, nonprofit, and government sectors. She's the lead researcher behind the National Workplace Trends Study, and delivers programs around her Bar Raisers™ and Leadership Mastery frameworks. She is the founder of Destination Workplace®, an award-winning leadership development firm in Dallas, Texas.
