We are used to talking about managers’ responsibility for employee well-being and engagement. But how often do we ask how engaged managers themselves are? Recent research suggests it’s time to pay much closer attention to this question.
According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026, manager engagement has declined significantly in recent years. In 2022, 31% of managers worldwide were engaged at work. By 2025, that figure had dropped to just 22%. Meanwhile, engagement among individual contributors declined by only one percentage point, from 20% to 19%.
Yet in the world’s best-performing organisations, 79% of managers were engaged. This tells us something important: declining manager engagement is not inevitable.
Managers Are Often the Most Overloaded Link in an Organisation
The demands of leadership have grown increasingly complex. Managers are expected to deliver results, improve efficiency, introduce new technologies, and lead organisational change. At the same time, they are responsible for supporting employee development, well-being, and motivation while creating a psychologically safe work environment.
All these expectations are reasonable. But do managers have the time, authority, skills, and support they need to meet them?
A manager can be deeply committed to their team while feeling that their own workload, responsibilities, and decision-making authority are no longer in balance. Feeling stretched too thin or thinking, “I simply don’t know,” is hardly unusual when navigating constant change.
And managerial exhaustion rarely affects managers alone. It can show up as delayed decisions, less frequent feedback, fewer one-on-one conversations, or a shift from understanding and developing people to simply putting out fires.
This is why manager well-being should not be treated merely as a matter of personal resilience. It is also a question of organisational effectiveness and leadership quality.
What Can Moticheck Data Tell Us About Managers Themselves?
Moticheck clients use continuous employee experience, engagement, and sentiment data to better understand managers’ working experience as well.
Managers are identified as a separate group within the organisational structure, their responses can be analysed and compared with those of other employees, while maintaining the platform’s confidentiality standards.
What should organisations pay attention to?
- Workload and mental well-being. Can managers cope with their workload? Do they have enough time to recover and maintain a healthy work-life balance?
- Role clarity and decision-making authority. Do managers have sufficient influence over the outcomes they are held accountable for?
- Organisational culture and support. Do managers feel heard and supported? Can they openly discuss difficult issues?
- Change management. Do managers have the information, skills, and resources needed to implement change successfully?
- Meaningful work and development. Do managers find their work meaningful? Do they see opportunities for their own growth?
For example, an organisation’s overall employee experience scores may be improving while managers’ ratings of workload and mental well-being are declining.
That should raise an important question: Are we achieving better employee outcomes at the expense of our managers’ capacity and well-being?
Measurement Alone Is Not Enough. What Should We Do Next?
Supporting managers doesn’t necessarily require another training programme or a major leadership development initiative. Often, the most meaningful improvements come from practical changes in how work is organised.
- Talk to managers about their own experience. Not just about results and team challenges. Ask what makes their work difficult, what support they are missing, and what could be done differently.
- Review workloads and decision-making authority. If managers are consistently overloaded, another time management course may not be the answer. Perhaps it’s time to reduce meetings, simplify reporting requirements, or give managers greater autonomy.
- Give managers space to think things through with someone. Mentoring, peer leadership groups, and regular conversations with their own managers can help them navigate complex situations. Managers, too, need the freedom to say, “I don’t know,” or “I need help.”
- Track whether your actions make a difference. Continuous employee experience monitoring allows organisations to see whether efforts to support managers are reflected in improvements in their working experience over time.
Do We Really Know How Our Managers Are Doing?
The next time your leadership team discusses employee engagement, well-being, or leadership quality, consider adding one more question to the agenda: Do our managers have the energy, clarity, and support they need to do their jobs well? Moticheck helps organisations recognise changes in employee experience before they turn into serious problems. The same approach should be applied to managers themselves.
Manager well-being is not an additional concern alongside employee experience. It is a foundation of a great employee experience.
Pille Parind-Nisula, October 2026
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