Employee engagement and leadership group coaching
Manager engagement fell to 22% in 2025, yet in best-practice organisations 79% of managers are engaged. Gallup, 2026.
Most engagement strategies quietly hand the hard work to managers. Yet Gallup's latest data shows their own engagement has dropped nine points since 2022, and leaders report more daily stress and loneliness than the people they lead. The best-practice organisations show it doesn't have to be this way, so the question is who's supporting your managers.
In my experience, leadership group coaching is one of the most effective approaches. It helps leaders build new habits on the job, and gives them support while they do it.
Contents
Why leaders matter for employee engagement
Global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, costing the world economy an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity. Gallup, 2026.
That $10 trillion is the cost of getting it wrong. Get it right, and the payoff is real: in Gallup's latest meta-analysis of more than 180,000 teams, the most engaged business units were 23% more profitable than the least engaged. Our round-up of employee engagement statistics has more.
Employee engagement is mostly made or lost in the relationship with a line manager. Knowing what's expected of you, having what you need, feeling your opinions count and having someone who cares about your development all sit largely with the person you report to.
Gallup puts a number on it: managers account for at least 70% of the variance in engagement scores across business units. Two teams in the same organisation, with the same pay and policies, can have a completely different experience of work depending on who leads them.
That's why the drop in managers' own engagement matters so much. Leaders set the tone for their teams, and it's hard to give people energy you don't have.
🤔 Reflective question: If your leaders' engagement dropped five points this year, how would you know?
What's the role of leadership training?
Many first-time managers start as brilliant individual contributors, who then get promoted to lead other people. One week they're the expert, the next they're running one-to-ones, giving feedback and handling conflict, often with no support.
82% of managers who enter a management role have had no formal management or leadership training. CMI, 2023.
Most organisations respond with training. Companies spent an estimated $394.5 billion on corporate training worldwide in 2025, according to Training Industry. But spending isn't the same as change.
A 2023 evidence review for the CIPD found leadership training can work, but not as a one-off event: people need practice, feedback and support back at work to apply what they've learned. Our guide to training versus coaching sets out when each works best.
Nearly 75% of leadership development professionals believe less than half of what they train is actually applied on the job. LEADx, 2024.
I know that gap from the inside. I've sat through multi-day leadership courses and returned to work leading exactly as before. The content wasn't the problem. Theory has its place, but I needed help applying it to day-to-day issues.
That's the gap group coaching is designed to close.
How can leadership group coaching help?
Coaching works differently from training.
Leadership group coaching, like our EMPOWER group programme, brings a small group of leaders together with a coach for regular sessions over several months. It’s less theory and more action. Each session focuses on a set leadership topic, and the coach helps each leader reflect on how it applies to their own role, then opens it up for peers to share and challenge each other.
Leaders work on real challenges they’re facing at the time, in a confidential space, so new skills are practised, tested and refined until they become habits. That combination of practice, feedback and time is what classroom training alone can’t give.
Here's what the group adds:
Peer learning. Hearing how another leader handled the same difficult conversation gives you ideas and confidence you might not find on your own.
Accountability between sessions. Saying out loud to four colleagues that you'll try something makes it much harder to quietly not do it.
Support. Leadership can be lonely. Gallup's 2026 data shows leaders are more likely than individual contributors to report stress, anger, sadness and loneliness on a given day. A group is somewhere to say the hard thing and hear that you're not the only one.
Reach. You develop several leaders at once, and they leave with a peer network that outlasts the programme. And, if you want that to continue, peer coaching circles are a natural next step.
(Empower) was awesome! Through the program, I built confidence, became more self-aware, and I developed a range of skills to enhance my current job and my relationships (personal & professional). I benefited from several aspects of the program, the reflective work and group sessions were really good. Overall, great program and fantastic coaches. EMPOWER participant, Senior Leader, London, UK
What the group coaching research says
Colleagues noticed the difference. On a business school programme for women managers, 360-degree ratings of leadership effectiveness rose significantly, and participants credited the group coaching with greater self-awareness, confidence and a clearer sense of direction.
Managers' own engagement rose. In a 2020 controlled trial, managers who took part in group sessions plus individual coaching reported higher work engagement and showed stronger coaching-style leadership afterwards.
Is group coaching right for your leaders?
Group coaching works best when several leaders are facing similar challenges, trust each other enough to be honest, and you're clear on what you'd like to see change. These questions will help you check whether those conditions are in place:
Have any of your leaders recently been promoted?
Are your leaders facing a new challenge, maybe a restructure or a new way of working?
Have you invested in training that had minimal impact?
If you answered yes to any of these, then leadership group coaching deserves a look. Our ten tips for choosing a coaching programme will help you compare the options.
Final thoughts
Coaching your leaders works on engagement twice over.
It supports their own engagement at a time when managers are disengaging faster than the people they lead, and it changes how they lead, which shapes how engaged their teams feel.
If you’re ready for leadership group coaching, then explore EMPOWER.
References
Barends, E., Rousseau, D., Janssen, B., Capezzio, A. and Velghe, C. (2023). Leadership development: an evidence review. Scientific summary. CIPD and Center for Evidence-Based Management.
Beck, R. and Harter, J. (2015). Managers account for 70% of variance in employee engagement. Gallup Business Journal.
Chartered Management Institute (2023). Taking responsibility: why UK plc needs better managers. CMI and YouGov.
Gallup (2026). State of the global workplace: 2026 report. Gallup, Inc.
Harter, J. K. et al. (2024). The relationship between engagement at work and organizational outcomes: Q12 meta-analysis, 11th edition. Gallup.
LEADx (2024). The 2024 LEADx leadership development benchmark report. LEADx.
Mbokota, G. and Reid, A. (2022). The role of group coaching in developing leadership effectiveness in a business school leadership development programme. South African Journal of Business Management, 53(1), a3105.
Peláez Zuberbuhler, M. J., Salanova, M. and Martínez, I. M. (2020). Coaching-based leadership intervention program: a controlled trial study. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 3066.
Training Industry (2026). What is the size of the training industry? Training Industry, Inc.
