The Manager Crisis: Why Your Leaders Are Burning Out and How to Reverse the Trend
- Kevin Davis
- Apr 23
- 5 min read
What You'll Learn
"The most important things are hardly ever urgent. That is why it is so important to identify what the most important things are and then place them at the center of our lives." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
A troubling revelation has emerged from Gallup's recently released 2025 State of the Global Workplace Report: managers worldwide are experiencing a significant decline in engagement, a trend that threatens to undermine organizational performance at every level. This isn't just another HR statistic to file away—it's a wake-up call for executives who depend on their management teams to drive results.
The Alarming Data
The 2025 Gallup report shows that global employee engagement fell from 23% to 21% in 2024, matching the decline seen during COVID-19 lockdowns. But dig deeper, and you'll find the primary cause: manager engagement continues to decline from 30% to 27%, while individual contributor engagement remained flat at 18%.
Even more concerning are the disproportionate impacts on specific manager segments:
Young managers (under 35) saw a five-percentage-point decline
Female managers experienced a staggering seven-percentage-point drop
These aren't just abstract numbers. As one maintenance technician from South Korea noted in the report: "Since [our leaders] don't stay long and move to other departments before we can fully get to know them, it's hard to develop trust."
Why Manager Engagement Is Your Organization's Lifeline
The report definitively confirms what many executives intuitively understand: 70% of team engagement is attributable to the manager. When managers disengage, their teams inevitably follow, creating a downward spiral that impacts productivity, customer relationships, and ultimately, financial performance.
A field operating manager from South Africa captured the challenge perfectly in the report: "We should have [a] team of six people. There's only two of us. I think that is very stressful."
Gallup estimates that if the world's workplace was fully engaged, $9.6 trillion in productivity could be added to the global economy—equivalent to 9% of global GDP. Even modest improvements in manager engagement can yield significant returns.
Three Evidence-Based Solutions
The report highlights three specific approaches that can reverse this troubling trend:
1. Provide Learning Opportunities
Less than half of the world's managers (44%) say they have received any management training. The data shows that trained managers are half as likely to be actively disengaged compared to untrained ones. Even rudimentary training in role responsibilities can prevent a manager from feeling overwhelmed.
Critical to this training is helping managers understand the distinction between leadership, management, and coaching as essential tools in their toolkit. Many managers struggle because they remain in the mindset of being "super-doers" rather than leaders focused on developing their people.
Effective managers need to understand when to:
Lead - by inspiring their team with a compelling vision and purpose
Manage - by establishing clear expectations, responsibilities, and accountability systems
Coach - by supporting individual growth and development through feedback and guidance
This shift in mindset—from personally accomplishing tasks to growing their people—is fundamental to successful management. A supervisor from Saudi Arabia attests to this in the report: "I learned new methods of working and how to deal with employees, and it helped me a lot with regard to the challenges I face at work."
2. Teach Effective Coaching Techniques
Some managers naturally excel at inspiring and developing people, but many need guidance. Gallup found that participants in management training focused on best practices experienced up to 22% higher engagement than non-participants. More impressively, their teams saw engagement rise by up to 18%, and manager performance metrics improved between 20-28%.
A UK systems engineer in the report emphasized the value: "If we are all working, going in the same direction, getting on with each other, being thankful to each other and respect each other, then it makes anything you do easier, even if the project itself is going through some tough times."
3. Focus on Manager Wellbeing Through Development
Manager wellbeing has suffered alongside engagement. The report shows that providing manager training improves manager thriving levels from 28% to 34%. But the impact is even more dramatic when someone actively encourages their development—thriving increases to 50%.
A team leader from Poland describes this positive experience: "I still have opportunities for development within the company, because the company offers various training and so on. That's also very important to me and motivates me to be in this job every day and give my best."
Building a Sustainable Manager Support System
To implement these solutions effectively, consider this framework:
Assess your current state: Use pulse surveys to measure manager engagement levels and identify specific pain points.
Implement essential training: Ensure every manager understands their basic responsibilities, has the necessary tools, and receives orientation to their role.
Develop coaching capabilities: Train managers in fundamental coaching skills like active listening, effective questioning, and providing constructive feedback.
Create development pathways: Establish clear growth opportunities for managers and assign mentors who actively encourage their development.
Reduce administrative burden: Audit and eliminate unnecessary meetings, reports, and tasks that consume managers' time without adding value.
Build peer support networks: Create opportunities for managers to connect, share challenges, and learn from each other.
The Time to Act Is Now
The decline in manager engagement didn't happen overnight, and the solutions won't work instantly either. However, the Gallup data clearly shows that targeted interventions can make a significant difference.
As executives, your most critical priority may not be the most urgent task on today's calendar—it's building and sustaining an engaged management team that can lead your organization through increasingly challenging times. By placing manager development at the center of your priorities, you're making a strategic investment in your organization's future performance.
The choice is clear: invest in your managers today, or risk watching your organizational performance slowly decline tomorrow. The managers in distress today are the same ones who will determine your organization's success or failure in the years to come.
Want to dive deeper into transformational leadership and building exceptional cultures?
Our book, "The Great Engagement," provides a comprehensive framework for addressing the engagement crisis in today's workplace. Discover how to help your managers master the essential tools of leadership, management, and coaching to create sustainable, high-performing teams.
This research-backed resource has been praised by top leadership experts, including Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager, who called it "servant leadership in action." Join the growing community of leaders who are transforming their organizations one engaged manager at a time.