Leadership Development and Coaching Are Key to Leader — and Employee — Engagement

Figuring out how to boost employee engagement is a top leadership concern — yet the numbers show we’re collectively going backward in workplace engagement worldwide. The 2025 Gallup “State of the Workplace” Report shows that global employee engagement has plummeted still further, from already low engagement last year to now just 21% engagement in 2025.

Employee well-being is closely linked to workplace engagement, yet managers must also face the reality of employees’ declining job satisfaction and worsening well-being. Gallup noted that many employees feel stressed, lonely, angry, and/or sad. Not surprisingly, with these types of emotions showing up frequently in the workplace, the intent to leave is high among employees globally — around half of workers think it’s a good time to find a new job, and just as many are actively looking for what they hope will be a better opportunity.

Some countries face even greater challenges than others when it comes to battling employee disengagement. In the United States and Canada, less than a third of employees are engaged, while over half are disengaged. This situation creates a major challenge for managers, who must find ways to address the employee engagement decline in the midst of ongoing disruptions and fluctuations, against a backdrop of digital transformation.

Yet managers are also part of the engagement problem, suffering from their own lowered well-being and engagement. It makes sense that a deteriorating workplace environment contributes to manager burnout as well — manager engagement declined this year to 27%, with younger managers and women managers seeing even bigger drops. Managers’ life evaluations fell globally, reflecting a significant decline in leadership well-being. When managers aren’t at their best, it can, of course, hurt the teams that they lead as well as their own performance.

The good news is, we don’t have to accept this current reality as our future — the solution for turning employee engagement around begins with boosting management engagement. Leaders can take actions to improve the experience and engagement of managers as a first step toward elevating worker engagement — especially since management and leadership engagement accounts for 70% of team engagement.

Reflecting on SHAMBAUGH’s executive coaching and leadership development programs, we’ve documented a clear “bounce” in positive management engagement when leaders participate. Such programs can reinvigorate and reenergize managers, infusing them with renewed commitment to their organization. As a result, leaders can confidently steer their organization through complex and ambiguous situations, benefiting themselves as well as their teams and company.

Here are five strategies we emphasize in our executive coaching and leadership development programs for managers and leaders to navigate today’s work environment, lead through unpredictable times, boost their own engagement, and, in turn, engage their teams:

• Embrace uncertainty and build resilience. Leaders need to not only understand uncertainty but also welcome it as a given in today’s workplace environment. The key is to view uncertainty as an opportunity for growth rather than a threat, and to prioritize a resilient mindset as a leader. Managers can’t help their teams become more resilient if they don’t practice what they preach. Improving focus even when under pressure can help leaders improve personal and team resilience.

• Lead adaptively. Flexibility is required by every leader in every industry today. Managers must learn to develop adaptive leadership by improving their own flexibility and ability to respond effectively to change, while fostering a growth mindset in their teams to help them learn from mistakes and find opportunity in failure.
• Enhance empowerment. Workplace engagement is enhanced when leaders create and encourage a culture of trust, psychological safety, and well-being. A big part of leadership development involves helping managers cultivate the type of environment where team members feel valued, connected, and empowered to innovate, experiment, find creative solutions, and learn from challenges.

• Communicate transparently. People trust leaders who bring transparent and effective communication to the table. Clarity, consistency, and honesty should be key factors in executive communications, with a focus on building trust, maintaining employee morale, and engaging in challenging conversations.

• Motivate teams. Most leaders aren’t born motivational and need executive coaching and leadership development training to realize their full potential. In order to empower and motivate teams, managers need to cultivate skills that allow them to delegate effectively, foster ownership in each team member, and inspire creativity and innovation in an ever-changing environment.

These points above make up part of the secret sauce of SHAMBAUGH’s “Lead From Within,” and they aren’t just important because I’ve found them to be effective. Gallup too discovered that giving managers training can cut extreme disengagement in half — currently, less than half of managers have received training. ​Teaching managers effective coaching techniques can also help, as trained managers show significantly higher engagement, and ongoing manager development can increase well-being. ​

We’ve seen firsthand that investing in executive coaching and leadership development programs leads to a virtuous cycle. When leaders feel more engaged, they inspire their employees to also care more about their job and company, increasing their own commitment and engagement.

If you’d like to expand your strategic leadership skills and capabilities, get in touch with us at info@shambaughleadership.com.

Visit SHAMBAUGH’s offerings on Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, Coaching and Development Programs for Women, Keynotes, and Fireside Chats. 

Rebecca Shambaugh is President of SHAMBAUGH Leadership, Founder of Women in Leadership and Learning, and author of the best-selling books It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor, and Make Room for Her: Why Companies Need an Integrated Leadership Model to Achieve Extraordinary Results.