How do you get your people to continually grow and learn? Employees inherently want to succeed, and they need effective coaching and feedback — both positive and constructive — in order to make productive changes and progress toward their goals.

In today’s work environment, building a culture of coaching is one of the most effective strategies human resources (HR) leaders and learning and development (L&D) professionals can implement to boost employee engagement, personal development and retention. Is your organization just managing or truly coaching your people?

Creating a Culture of Coaching: Leadership Training Required

A coaching culture starts at the top. That means developing leaders who don’t just manage tasks — they mentor and grow people. These leaders are strategic, organized and focused on the future. They know how to motivate teams, have tough conversations and inspire trust.

Coaching encourages in-the-moment feedback that helps employees improve communication, build leadership skills and understand the “why” behind effective behaviors. It’s also a smart way to transfer institutional knowledge and foster internal talent development.

Ready to get started? Here are key steps to develop leaders that foster continuous feedback, boost engagement and support lasting development and retention.

Develop people leaders. For a culture of coaching to thrive, leaders must connect with people personally and professionally, communicate clearly and demonstrate empathy. Leadership development should focus on these foundational people skills. Early to mid-career is the ideal time to train rising talent in essential leadership skills.

Leadership development programs that emphasize emotional intelligence, communication and trust-building can drive lasting engagement and retention. The ripple effect of this training empowers organizations to retain top talent and build stronger, people-first cultures.

Provide communication training. Communication is the basis of all employee interactions. When leaders learn to communicate effectively, employees feel respected and heard. By empathizing with others, demonstrating self- and social-awareness and actively listening, leaders can tailor their communication and provide meaningful employee experiences.

Introduce conflict training. This invaluable type of training will teach learners how to effectively discuss issues directly with employees and help them develop the courage to manage reactions to employees’ responses.

Promote ongoing learning. Building coaching into your culture means embracing continuous learning — not just for employees, but for leaders too.

Leaders who understand and fulfill employees’ needs create higher employee satisfaction. Enforcing work-life balance, providing employees with autonomy to do their jobs, creating a growth-mindset with transparent communication and fostering belonging are techniques leaders can learn through leadership development training.

Key Strategies That Define a Culture of Coaching

Let’s get into the specifics. Here are several key strategies you’ll often see in a coaching culture and the specific leadership skills and tactics needed to implement them effectively.

Face-to-Face Check-Ins

Regular one-on-one conversations are powerful opportunities for reflection, goal setting and growth planning. These discussions help employees take ownership of their career development.

Training tip: Teach leaders how to maximize their one-on-ones with active listening training. Leaders will learn how to pay full attention, withhold judgement and respond appropriately. This skill improves leaders’ communication techniques, which in turn builds strong interpersonal relationships, fostering rapport, understanding and trust.

Virtual Coaching

In remote or hybrid work environments, managers must be intentional about staying connected. Video calls, daily huddles and remote recognitions can help maintain engagement and build relationships.

Training tip: Explore virtual coaching platforms and encourage leaders to develop communication norms by working together with teams to set expectations around response times, preferred communication channels, meeting cadence and feedback style. Leaders should document the communication expectations and re-evaluate regularly.

Feedback

Feedback reinforces great performance, boosts morale and encourages employees to keep learning and growing. Giving feedback is crucial to help employees stay on track, improve and advance.

Training tip: Give leaders the tools to deliver feedback that is timely, specific and relevant. Timely feedback allows employees to connect the feedback to their actions, making it more actionable and meaningful. When feedback is both specific and delivered close to the behavior or event, it reinforces what was done well or what could be improved while it’s still fresh in the employee’s mind. This increases the likelihood of behavior change and supports continuous learning.

Creating psychological safety, where employees feel safe asking questions or admitting mistakes, is essential to making feedback effective. Train leaders on how and when to give feedback, and provide examples of what effective feedback looks like. Gallup research found that teams that received strength-based feedback were six times more engaged, had higher performance and were less likely to leave their company.

Public Recognition

Recognizing achievements in a specific and noticeable way not only boosts morale but reinforces desired behaviors. Having clear goals and expectations also helps employees track their growth over time.

Training tip: Encourage leaders to recognize the value and contributions of all team members. This type of public recognition goes a long way. For example, simply saying, “Thank you for going the extra mile to complete the project prior to the deadline,” leaves major impacts. It improves the employee’s self-esteem, fosters better collaboration, sparks motivation, increases job satisfaction and encourages job advancement.

Situational Leadership

Good coaches adjust their style based on team dynamics and individual needs. Skills like adaptability, critical thinking and empathy are crucial for guiding teams through all types of challenges.

Training tip: Help leaders build their emotional intelligence by taking DISC training to better understand their team members’ communication and work styles. Leaders will gain an understanding of their team’s behavioral tendencies, enhancing communication and collaboration within the team. Leaders will also likely see improved self-awareness, an understanding of other’s motives, stronger conflict management skills and insight into individual approaches to work and communication.

Psychological Safety and Trust

Employees should feel safe speaking up, requesting help, asking questions or admitting mistakes. This is fundamental to effective coaching.

Training tip: Leaders and managers play a key role in building psychological safety and trust by recognizing whole-person goals, celebrating well-being milestones and reinforcing how each employee contributes to the organization’s mission. A psychologically safe culture empowers employees to express their ideas and take calculated risks — that’s when creativity, innovation and personal development flourish.

Annual Reviews

While real-time feedback is essential, annual reviews still serve a purpose. They provide a holistic view of progress and reaffirm long-term goals.

Training tip: To coach effectively and offer future-focused feedback, leaders must have access to an effective training program. The ultimate goal of any performance appraisal is to increase employee engagement and develop workforce talent. Accomplishing this means putting an effective program in place to train leaders.

Making it Stick

Coaching is about fostering growth, unlocking potential and creating trust. These skills do not come naturally to most. They need to be learned, practiced and refined. Training leadership in this critical capability should be ongoing, aligned with company values and designed to address skills gaps.

To be effective, training programs should be customizable, easy to implement and supported by responsive customer service. The training should use fresh, relevant content to prepare leaders for today and well into the future.

A culture of coaching isn’t built overnight, but it delivers powerful benefits — from better engagement and stronger development to improved retention and business performance. HR and L&D leaders have the opportunity to make coaching a cornerstone of organizational success by prioritizing feedback, trust and people-first leadership development.