Leap Trends · Leadership · Middle management
Also touches on the condition Culture · How we choose the condition
Briefing
Engagement and workload of managers and their teams
- Manager engagement
- Workload
- Management layers
Worldwide, manager engagement is falling faster than that of their employees, while organisations cut management layers and hand more to the managers who remain. Gallup identifies this fall as the main cause of the global dip in engagement.
This briefing has not been updated for more than three months. Check the figures against the source before you use them.
Compiled with AI from public sources, with the source for every figure. Key figures labelled Checked have been compared with the source by a person. How that works
Key figures
- 22%of managers worldwide were engaged in 2025, against 31% in 2022. Among non-managers the figure barely changed.GallupNot yet checked
- 42%of organisations cut management roles in the past year.Korn FerryNot yet checked
- 55%of the managers who remain say they are exhausted.Korn FerryNot yet checked
- 47%of managers say more is expected of them than a year ago.GartnerNot yet checked
What the sources say
For years the manager was the most engaged employee in the building. Those days are over. Gallup finds that manager engagement worldwide fell from 31 to 22 per cent in three years, with the biggest drop in 2025, while that of ordinary employees barely moved. Managers report daily stress, anger and loneliness more often than the people they manage. Gallup names the disengaging manager as the main explanation for the global dip in engagement.
The cause lies in what organisations have done in recent years. Among sixteen thousand professionals in eleven countries, Korn Ferry finds that 42 per cent of organisations cut management roles in the past year and that 55 per cent of the managers who remain say they are exhausted. At Gartner, almost half of managers say they have to do more than a year ago, and a good part of their time goes on employees’ personal and emotional issues. The layers have gone; the work has stayed.
It is not a law of nature. In the organisations Gallup holds up as examples, almost four in five managers are engaged. The difference lies in the size of the team, in who is put in the role and in the support that person gets afterwards. See also the briefing Span of control and how much hands-on work managers still do, where Gallup measured the threshold.
How solid is this? Three independent institutes measure the same thing within a single year, but the series is short, so the picture is not yet settled. Whether 2025 was a low point or a new normal will become clear from next spring’s figures.
For the leadership team
The saving from a cut layer appears in the budget; the cost of it appears nowhere. Anyone reshaping the structure this year would do well to measure first how their own managers are doing and what can come off their plate, before another layer goes.
Sources
- Korn FerryKorn Ferry Workforce 2026 Report: Unlocking Growth Requires Rethinking How Work Gets Done
- GallupEmployee Engagement Remains Flat as AI Adoption Accelerates
- GartnerGartner HR Survey Finds 47% of Managers Say They Are Working Harder Than One Year Ago
- GallupState of the Global Workplace 2026
Lower engagement among managers accounts for most of the recent downturn in employee engagement.
We summarise in our own words and quote no more than one sentence per source. Read the original: there is more in it. How we use sources.
Academic research
- University of Turin · Caputo et al.“Uroboros” circle: a multilevel study on leader–follower and follower–leader crossover
- University of Gothenburg · Corin et al.Managing less, leading more? The trickle-down effects of reduced managerial span of control in healthcare
- Boston University · Yanchus et al.Leadership Behaviors and Burnout in Healthcare: A Mixed-Methods Study in the Veterans Health Administration
- Northwestern University · Brandon et al.Physician Assistant Burnout: The Role of Leader Well-Being and Span of Control
Academic articles on the same phenomenon, no more than a year old at the last search, from universities in Europe and North America, found through the open database OpenAlex. These articles count towards the publications per month; the text and key figures above are based on the sources. How we choose the articles.
How this briefing has been updated
Title now describes the topics; previously “The manager is checking out” (AI)
Added 1 publication after a search round on new topics and sources. (AI)
Added 4 articles from universities in Europe and North America (via OpenAlex). (AI)
First draft based on Gallup, Gartner and Korn Ferry. (AI)