Connection Heroes - future of LMD

From Competence to Connection: The Future of Leadership

We ask a lot of our managers. They’re expected to keep teams engaged, productive, and healthy, often with outdated skills and limited support.

But the world of work has changed and it’s time our expectations, and our training, caught up.

The numbers are stark: Gallup found that 70% of team engagement is driven by the manager. That means the health and performance of your entire workforce is directly linked to how equipped your managers are to help people in their teams feel seen, heard, valued and trusted.

Yet, as the latest Gartner research highlights, most leadership development is falling short. Only 36% of HR leaders believe their current programs are preparing leaders for the future.

Too often, leadership training focuses on abstract competencies or technical skills, when what today’s workplaces really need are human-centered capabilities: trust-building, communication, collaboration, and the ability to maintain team engagement and belonging in hybrid and fast-changing environments.

Gartner’s findings make it clear that – to develop leaders who can meet today’s challenges – we need to:

  • Create diverse learning cohorts because different perspectives strengthen leadership
  • Prioritise peer reflection because deep learning happens when managers can talk honestly with peers facing the same challenges
  • Use in-person time for human connection and experiential activities, not just content delivery
  • Build in accountability to help managers apply new skills and make change visible and measurable

As Gartner puts it, leaders need to evolve into both human and enterprise leaders – combining business acumen with emotional intelligence.

Without strong Human Connection Skills, managers struggle to keep teams engaged, risking disengagement, burnout, and turnover. But when managers are equipped to lead through connection, everything shifts: engagement rises, productivity improves, and teams are happier, healthier and more resilient.

If your leadership and management development programmes still look like they did five years ago, it’s time for a rethink. Connection skills aren’t “nice to have”; they’re mission-critical for the modern workplace.

If you’d like to discuss ways to integrate Connection Skills into your existing LDP, or how you could redesign your programmes to be more connection-focused, we’re always happy to chat!