Your Best Investment in 2026

According to Gallup’s research on workplace engagement, there is one statistic that should impact where you invest your training dollars in 2026:  Poor managers are responsible for 70% of employees being disengaged in the workplace.

That number deserves attention. It means the difference between your most productive employees and your least productive is one thing:  their manager—not the mission statement,  not the team meetings, not the C.E. you pay for, not compensation packages, but their manager.  And why?  In managers’ defense, they’ve likely never received adequate training and support in how to grow, develop, and engage their people.

Of course, that leaves 30% who are engaged and are often managed by the same people. So, what about them? Well, research also shows us that individual personalities, motivations, and external factors will account for some workers doing well, regardless of how they are managed.  They are internally and personally driven to improve, grow, and seek feedback and coaching on their own. But they are the minority.

Here’s the good news as I see it:

• There is a gold mine of growth, productivity, and creative potential lurking just beneath the surface of your employees’ engagement with their work and with your company if you can find a way to unleash it.
• When the problem lies with you, you can do something about it.

And there is additional good news on this front. While less than 38% of managers receive any form of training, when they did get it, 95% of them said their team’s results got better and the manager’s personal enjoyment of their own job improved.

So, what do well-trained managers do that untrained managers do not? Here’s my list:

• Feedback – They give frequent, consistent feedback (no less than monthly but often weekly or even daily but definitely more than once a year at an annual review). Regular check-ins create relationship, and that will always outperform any periodic, singular event. Great leaders know how to make this feedback interactive, positive, supportive, and clear.
• Recognition – More impactful than peer recognition or even company-wide awards, recognition directly from someone’s manager is more believable and impactful in terms of how it is received by employees.
• Coaching – This is different than feedback and good managers know this. Coaching conversations are about the continuation of growth and refinement of employees. It includes mentoring, training, and testing and requires very different communication skills than feedback or conflict management.
• Autonomy Calibration – There is a drastic and crucial difference between giving direction to your employees and micromanaging them. If you’re overmanaging your people, you’re stifling their growth and progress as well as the company’s. High-performing team members tell us their managers communicate with extreme clarity and explain how they can accomplish their tasks with autonomy.
• Translation of Company Culture – It’s not what we say the company culture is but rather how we translate it every day through our actions as leaders which makes it come alive and cements it in place. Employees experience culture through their managers and leaders every day and then become an extension of it to others. If you have strong cultural values but they are executed by poor managers, you will have disengaged employees. If you have weak cultural values, a good manager can still produce highly engaged employees. That’s the power of highly skilled managers.

Gallup’s research tells us that if you know nothing more about an employee other than who their manager is, you can predict their engagement and success with shocking accuracy. In 2026, investing in leadership development and managerial communication skills just may be the fastest way to grow your business, align your team, raise your standards, and attract and retain the best employees.

Bottomline, it won’t be the pizza parties or the bonus structure that improves the performance of your employees; it will be the skills of your managers and team leaders.

If this resonates with you, reach out for help. We make it so easy to get and keep your managers, team leads, and small business owner’s leadership communication skills sharp and effective.

Our next virtual Leadership Academy cohort starts April 7^th with only 20 seats so grab yours now while the early bird special saves you $500 before February 28^th.

“The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development.  There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders, and continually develops them.”

~ John Maxwell