Managers hear it all the time: You need to coach more. You need to coach better.
But while many try, their efforts often fall flat. They either default to advice-giving, get stuck in surface-level conversations, or avoid it altogether, saying they don’t have the time, the skill, or the confidence to do it right.
The problem isn’t that managers don’t care. It’s that most were never set up to succeed.
They were promoted for being strong individual contributors and given tools for performance tracking. But tools for people development? Nothing. And they’re navigating all of this in environments that demand more output, with less support.
And when coaching doesn’t land, the impact is felt everywhere:
- High-potential talent doesn’t grow.
- Teams don’t evolve.
- HR is left trying to drive development without traction on the ground.
If we want managers to coach better, we need to stop throwing one-size-fits-all frameworks over the fence and start helping them coach in a way that works for them and the people they lead.
That’s where personality comes in. Not as a box or a label but as a lens.
Why Coaching Feels Hard, Even for Great Managers
We’ve seen it happening and the symptoms are usually the same:
- Managers don’t have time to coach.
- They lack confidence in their coaching.
- They avoid hard conversations.
- They default to giving advice instead of asking questions.
But the root causes run deeper.
Most managers are still handed generic coaching frameworks. The same model, the same script, the same set of prompts, regardless of who they’re managing or who they are.
And here’s what gets missed:
Every manager has a default coaching style, whether they realize it or not. Some jump into problem-solving. Others hold back out of fear of overstepping. Some lean into emotional support. Still others prioritize structure and precision.
All of these have merit. But when those tendencies go unexamined, they lead to:
- Coaching that’s out of sync with the person on the other side.
- Conversations that never get past surface-level observations.
- Feedback that doesn’t stick—because it doesn’t resonate.
Now flip the perspective.
Every employee brings their own preferences too. Some want step-by-step direction. Others want space to figure things out. Some need reassurance, while others want to be challenged.
That’s why coaching can’t be copy-pasted across a team. To work, it has to be personalized, and that personalization starts with awareness.
How Personality Insights Make Coaching Actually Work
This is where personality insights change the game.
Tools like the WorkPlace Big Five Profile™ offer something most coaching frameworks don’t:
A clear, research-backed way to understand how someone is wired to work, and how those patterns play out in communication, collaboration, feedback, and growth.
But it’s not just about knowing your team. It’s also about knowing yourself.
Coaching is more than a skill. It’s a relationship, and every relationship works better when both people understand their natural preferences and tendencies.
Here’s how the lens of personality insights elevates coaching without requiring a certification or a new program.
1. Self-Awareness That Helps Managers Coach Intentionally
Before managers can coach others well, they need to understand their own defaults.
Do they tend to speak more than they listen? Do they hesitate to give feedback? Do they jump to fix things when someone just needs space?
Personality insights make those patterns visible, not as judgments, but as neutral tendencies. And once they’re visible, managers can then start to choose when to lean into them and when to pull back.
That shift, from unconscious to intentional, is often the missing link between managers who try to coach and those who coach successfully.
2. A Map of What Motivates (and Drains) Each Employee
Not all coaching is about fixing problems. In fact, the best coaching helps people lean into what naturally energizes them and navigate what drains them.
But most managers have no structured way to understand what that looks like for each team member.
With the WorkPlace Big Five Profile™, those motivators and friction points come into view:
- Some people thrive on independence. Others feel anxious without structure.
- Some love brainstorming. Others need time to think alone before sharing ideas.
- Some are naturally assertive. Others avoid conflict even when something matters to them.
When managers understand what makes someone tick, coaching becomes more focused, more supportive, and more effective.
3. Coaching Conversations That Actually Land
Here’s where things get practical.
Once managers understand both their own preferences and the preferences of their individual team members, they can adapt the way they frame feedback, ask questions, and set goals.
That might mean:
- Offering a big-picture perspective to someone who embraces the abstract.
- Providing structure and timelines for someone who is highly conscientious.
- Being direct and clear with someone who leans toward efficiency and action.
- Creating space for reflection with someone who processes things more internally.
It’s not about changing the message but about delivering it in a way that lands.
4. Stronger Coaching Relationships (and More Trust)
People don’t open up to managers who don’t get them. But they will lean in when they feel seen, understood, and supported on their own terms.
That’s what personality insights enable.
It helps managers meet employees where they are—so coaching becomes a partnership, not a performance review.
The Best Part? Coaching Gets Easier, Not Harder
Too often, coaching is framed as “more work” for managers. Another skill to master and another meeting to schedule.
But with the right insights, coaching doesn’t need to be a long or formal engagement to be impactful.
It can happen in five minutes after a meeting. In a quick Slack message. In a conversation that starts with, “How are you thinking about this?”
When managers understand their people (and themselves), those everyday moments become coaching moments.
And when that happens consistently, you don’t just get better managers, you get more engaged teams, stronger performance, and sustained development.
Want to See How Personality Insights Work in Practice?
The WorkPlace Big Five Profile™ is built on over 40 years of research into the Five-Factor Model—the gold standard of personality science. It’s a validated, workplace-specific tool designed not just to describe people, but to help them work better together.
It reveals how each person is wired to collaborate, lead, adapt, and grow.
It’s the clarity managers need to coach with confidence, without generic frameworks.
To scale this insight across your organization, we built We, the WorkPlace Big Five Profile™ Experience: The first self-led personality insights platform that turns assessment results into real-world action, every day, for every employee.
We takes the full range of WorkPlace Big Five Profile™ insights and makes them accessible to everyone so they can experience meaningful growth, no matter their role or level.
With We, employees can:
- Understand how they work best and how to work better with others.
- Navigate stress, feedback, and conflict with more self-awareness.
- Grow in ways that align with who they are, not just what they do.
And for HR and People teams, We delivers:
- Development that reaches every level, without adding new programs.
- Coaching support that doesn’t rely solely on the manager.
- A low-lift, high-impact way to drive engagement, retention, and growth.
We isn’t another leadership program. It’s a smarter foundation for all leaders.
One assessment. One platform. A completely different approach to development, rooted in research, built for scale.