Your managers' engagement is at its lowest point in years
Manager engagement dropped to 27% in 2024, down from 30% the previous year; the lowest level in nearly a decade, according to Gallup.
And at the same time, organizations continue to invest more than ever in leadership development programs.
Something in that equation doesn't add up.
When manager engagement drops, the organizational response is almost automatic: more training, more coaching, more leadership programs.
It's a convenient diagnosis, because it assumes the problem is one of capability. But today's managers don't have less capability than those from five years ago. They have fewer conditions to exercise it.
And that is particularly concerning because managers have an enormous influence on their teams' performance. When a manager disengages, it's not an individual problem. It's a problem that multiplies across their entire team.
Overall, only 31% of employees in the U.S. are truly engaged at work, while 17% are actively disengaged—the highest level of disengagement in nearly a decade.
The manager is right at the center of that statistic. They are the ones who transmit, or fail to transmit, engagement to the rest of the team. And if the manager themselves is disengaged, there is no team wellness program that can make up for that.
Here is the cost that most organizations don't calculate: the cost of replacing an employee can amount to six to nine months of their salary, considering training and lost productivity. When that employee is a manager, the cost isn't just theirs. It's the productivity of their entire team during the transition.
And yet, most organizations continue to measure engagement once a year, with a climate survey that arrives months after the problem started.
The necessary reframing is this: manager engagement is not an indicator of individual well-being. It is a business risk indicator, with the same level of urgency as any financial metric.
Three questions worth asking before approving the next leadership development program:
Do you know what the current engagement level of your managers is, not from a year ago?
Do you have any early signs of disengagement before it turns into turnover?
Is the development budget solving a lack of skill, or a lack of conditions?
If you don't have a clear answer for all three, the risk isn't just cultural. It's financial, and it's already running.
The question for those who lead people today:
Are you measuring your managers' engagement with the same urgency that you measure any other business risk?
If you want to explore how to bring measurable well-being to your organization, fill out the following form in less than 2 minutes and we'll send you a proposal today.
