If 2025 was the year of AI integration, 2026 will be the year of human reintegration.
As organizations continue to automate, consolidate, and restructure, the one question that keeps surfacing across Learning and Development conversations is:
“How do we make sure our people still feel like they’re growing?”
The answer isn’t in another technology investment. It’s in your managers.
Managers are the most immediate, visible, and influential part of the employee experience — yet most say they lack the tools, time, or confidence to support their team’s career development. That gap is costing organizations dearly in lost capability, missed promotions, and preventable turnover.
The good news? You already have everything you need to start fixing it.
Your Career Development Strategy Starts with the Managers You Already Have
Career development programs often stall because they feel abstract: a corporate priority that lives in a slide deck, not in the day-to-day life of the business. But when you turn to your managers, they have great potential to tie the day-to-day goals to the teams they work with.
Managers understand their people’s skills and challenges; L&D and HR leaders understand the company’s strategic direction.
When those two perspectives align, career development becomes personal and sustainable.
That’s exactly why Mindscaling created the Manager Career Development Starter Kit — a free, 5-page workbook that helps organizations assess readiness, identify high-potential managers, and start building a manager-led development culture.
What the Most Forward-Thinking Organizations Are Doing
According to the 2025 Linkedin Workplace Learning Report, companies that intentionally invest in career development programs see 100% positive business results year after year with stronger retention, internal mobility, and higher leadership promotions.
But those same reports reveal that many managers still feel unprepared. The top reasons?
- They aren’t sure how to have career conversations.
- They don’t know how to connect individual goals to business strategy.
- They’re too overloaded to make learning part of daily work.
That’s where 2026 presents an opportunity. The organizations thriving through change are those reimagining what manager enablement looks like — empowering them not just to deliver results, but to develop their people.
How to Prepare Your Organization Now
Before you can identify which managers are ready to lead career development, you first need to understand whether your organization itself has the structure and support systems that make growth possible. This is Step 1 in the Starter Kit.
Even if you don’t have a formal career development program today, you can lay the groundwork by focusing on three areas:
1. Assess Your Environment. Use a simple readiness scan to evaluate whether your systems, culture, and expectations make it easy for managers to grow their teams. Ask questions like:
- Do we give managers time and space for development conversations?
- Is career growth communicated as a business priority?
- Do we recognize or reward managers who promote from within?
2. Identify High-Readiness Managers. Look for the people already showing curiosity, empathy, initiative, or strategic thinking.
These are your early “career ambassadors” — the managers who can help you pilot new practices, test conversations, and gather feedback.
3. Start Small, and Start Now. Host a short kickoff meeting to introduce the idea of manager-led development. Invite managers to share:
- What helps their teams grow
- What support they need
- What they’d like development to look like
Even a 30-minute discussion can build momentum and uncover unexpected enthusiasm.
The Soft Skills Managers Will Need in 2026
Before managers can champion career growth, they need a strong foundation of human-centered skills that help them coach, connect, and communicate effectively (the skills AI can’t automate).
The core skills managers will need in 2026 include:
- Coaching: guiding through questions and feedback rather than directives.
- Strategic Awareness: understanding how daily work connects to business outcomes.
- Empathy & Trust: building psychological safety so people can fail, learn, and grow.
- Learning Agility: adapting quickly and modeling curiosity.
- Purpose Alignment: helping employees connect their work to something meaningful.
These are the same five traits measured in Step 2 of the toolkit’s Manager Readiness Checklist, a simple but powerful diagnostic that reveals who’s ready to lead development and who needs support first.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
The future of leadership isn’t about hierarchy — it’s about enablement.
👉 Download the Manager Career Development Starter Kit, and take your first step toward building a manager-led development culture in 2026.
And when you’re ready to put the plan into motion, partner with Mindscaling to co-design a custom Manager Career Ambassador Program tailored to your organization’s goals, people, and culture. Because when your managers grow their people, your organization grows itself.
📅 Schedule your consultation: https://calendly.com/rachelkwas/30min
