Why Employee Development Is a Leadership Skill
Trust is built through the everyday experiences employees have with their leaders. And one of those experiences may matter more than we realize: whether employees believe their manager is invested in their growth.
Research shared in our recent Human-Centered Leadership webinar found that employees whose managers actively support their development are 11 times more likely to trust them. That makes employee development more than a good leadership practice. It's one of the ways managers build trust.
Leadership Development Sends a Message
When managers take an active role in employee development, they're communicating something beyond the content of the conversation.
They're showing employees that they see potential in them. That they're paying attention to their strengths. That they're interested not only in what the employee can accomplish today, but also in what they can become.
Over time, those experiences help build credibility and trust.
But development conversations can easily get crowded out by the immediate demands of managing.
There is always a project that needs attention, a deadline approaching, a problem to solve, or a performance issue to address. When time is limited, conversations naturally gravitate toward what needs to happen next.
That makes it easy for coaching to become primarily about performance.
Coaching for Performance and Coaching for Development Aren't the Same
Managers need to coach for performance. Employees need clear expectations, useful feedback, accountability, and help overcoming barriers to getting results.
But developing someone requires a different kind of conversation.
Performance coaching tends to focus on the work in front of us: What needs to improve? What's getting in the way? What needs to happen next?
Development coaching creates room to look further ahead. What strengths can this person build on? Where do they want to grow? What experiences could help them develop? What might they be ready to take on next?
Both conversations matter.
The challenge for managers is recognizing which conversation is needed and having the skills to lead it well.
Development Doesn't Have to Mean Having All the Answers
This is where managers can unintentionally make development harder than it needs to be.
Supporting someone's growth doesn't mean mapping out their entire career or knowing exactly what their next role should be. And coaching doesn't require the manager to solve every development challenge for the employee.
In fact, effective development conversations should create more ownership, not dependency.
Managers can help employees reflect on their strengths, explore possibilities, identify opportunities to grow, and decide what actions they want to take. The manager's role is to create space for that thinking, ask useful questions, offer perspective, and help connect development to real opportunities.
That changes development from something a manager does for an employee into something they work on with the employee.
Make Development Part of Everyday Leadership
One of the themes from our Human-Centered Leadership webinar was that strong leadership isn't necessarily about doing more. It's about doing the right things more consistently.
Employee development works the same way.
A meaningful development conversation doesn't always require a formal career-planning meeting. Managers can create development opportunities through the way they coach after a difficult assignment, ask employees what they learned, provide timely feedback, offer a stretch opportunity, or help someone recognize a strength they could use in a new way.
Those interactions add up.
And when employees consistently experience a manager who listens, coaches, provides feedback, and takes an interest in their growth, development becomes more than an HR process.
It becomes part of the relationship between leader and employee.
And that relationship is where trust grows.
Help Your Managers Develop Their People
Knowing that employee development matters and knowing how to have an effective development conversation aren't necessarily the same thing.
That's why our next Manage OnPoint! Public Workshop focuses specifically on Developing Your Direct Reports.
In this focused, two-hour virtual workshop, managers will learn how to distinguish between coaching for performance and coaching for development and use a practical, strengths-based approach to help employees take greater ownership of their growth.
Manage OnPoint! Developing Your Direct Reports
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
1:00–3:00 p.m. ET | 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. PT
Virtual, facilitator-led | $395 per participant
If you have an individual manager or a small group of leaders who would benefit from strengthening this skill, our public workshop offers a just-in-time way to give them practical tools they can put to work right away.
Learn More and Register »
