Leap Trends · Leadership · Middle management
Also touches on the condition Structure · How we choose the condition
Briefing
Unbossing and why middle managers want to leave
- Intention to leave
- Unbossing
- Stress among managers
In May 2026, 56 per cent of US managers were looking for another job, and worldwide 40 per cent of managers under increased stress had considered giving up leadership altogether. The layer that organisations thinned out themselves is now thinning out of its own accord.
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
- 56%of US managers were watching for or actively seeking another job in May 2026.GallupNot yet checked
- 40%of managers whose stress has increased have considered giving up leadership altogether; among less stressed leaders it is 20%.DDINot yet checked
- 71%of managers worldwide report a marked rise in stress since taking their current role; in 2022 it was 63%.DDINot yet checked
- 42%of organisations cut management roles in the past year.Korn FerryNot yet checked
What the sources say
The briefing Engagement and workload of managers and their teams is about engagement. This briefing is about the step after that. Gallup finds that in May 2026, 56 per cent of US managers were watching for or actively seeking another job. Only 30 per cent of them are engaged, and 18 per cent are extremely satisfied with their organisation as an employer. Gallup adds, drily, that managers account for 70 per cent of the variance in engagement between teams. Lose the manager, in other words, and you lose more than one person.
DDI sees the same worldwide among 10,796 leaders in more than fifty countries. Of these, 71 per cent report a marked rise in stress since taking their current role, against 63 per cent in 2022. Yet only three in ten feel they have enough time to do the job well. Among the stressed leaders, 54 per cent worry about burnout and 40 per cent have considered giving up leadership altogether, against 20 per cent of less stressed leaders. DDI’s chapter title calls it a possible leadership exodus.
The background is familiar. Korn Ferry, surveying sixteen thousand professionals in eleven countries, finds that 42 per cent of organisations cut management roles in the past year and that 55 per cent of the managers who remain are exhausted. Writing in HR Leader in April 2025, Rebecca Houghton noted that almost a third of US layoffs in 2023 hit managers, and almost half in 2024, citing figures from Live Data Technologies. She points to Google, which in 2002 briefly abolished its engineering managers and soon brought them back, and to Zappos, which reversed its holacracy without job titles. Her point: weak managers you can do without, but lose good managers and a team loses its feedback and direction.
How solid is the evidence? Moderately. Two institutes measure the intention to leave, Gallup in the United States and DDI worldwide, and DDI’s stress series has been rising since 2022. The rest is context. What nobody has yet measured is how many managers actually leave or step back into a role without a team. Once those figures exist, the picture may change.
For the leadership team
The organisation deliberately thinned its management layer; the sources suggest the managers who remain are now taking the next step themselves. The question for the leadership team is whether it knows which managers are looking around, and who picks up a departing manager's work when there is no layer left beneath them.
Sources
- Korn FerryKorn Ferry Workforce 2026 Report: Unlocking Growth Requires Rethinking How Work Gets Done
- GallupIndicator: Leadership & Management
As of May 2026, 56% of managers were watching for or actively seeking a new job
- HR Leader · Rebecca HoughtonUnbossing and the great flattening: Lessons on the risks of ditching middle management
- DDIGlobal Leadership Forecast 2025
Even more alarming, 40% have considered abandoning leadership roles entirely as a result, compared to just 20% of less-stressed leaders.
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Academic research
- Concordia University Wisconsin · Nelson“Can I and do I want to?”: How Generation Z employees evaluate managerial roles
- University of Chieti-Pescara · Simonetti et al.Factors Influencing Intention to Leave Among Nurse Managers: A Cross‐Sectional Study
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 “After unbossing, the middle manager walks out too” (AI)
Added 2 articles from universities in Europe and North America (via OpenAlex). (AI)
First draft based on DDI, HR Leader, Gallup and Korn Ferry. (AI)