Gallup's Jim Harter On The Global Engagement Decline Leaders Cannot Ignore

Forbes

30-04-2025

Global Employee Engagement Trend
Following the release of Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2025 report, I sat down with Jim Harter, Gallup's Chief Scientist for Workplace Management and Wellbeing and a leading authority on engagement and wellbeing, to explore what the latest findings reveal about the future of leadership.
When you sit down with Jim, you are not just reviewing numbers. You are interpreting what those numbers reveal and what they demand of leaders. Jim has a real knack for seeing what lies behind the numbers, the patterns and possibilities they point toward but do not always explicitly say.
The urgency was clear.
Global engagement dropped by two points, an estimated $438 billion in lost productivity. This marks only the second global drop in engagement Gallup has recorded, the first occurring in the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Two points may sound incremental. But as Jim pointed out, 'What it really signals is a growing detachment, a weakening of energy that organizations rely on, often without realizing it.'
That loss is only part of the story. If the global workforce were fully engaged, Gallup estimates that $9.6 trillion in productivity would be added to the economy. That would represent a 9% increase in global GDP, the equivalent of adding an entire top-five economy to the world.
The gap between where we are and where we could be is not theoretical. It is real, measurable and enormous. Especially now, when disruption is no longer a single event but a series of aftershocks reshaping work and life.
When I asked Jim why CEOs should care about a two-point drop in engagement, he did not hesitate.
'Engagement is not abstract,' he said. 'It shapes whether employees go the extra mile, whether they notice problems and fix them, whether they feel accountable for quality and outcomes.'
In a world where every advantage is fragile, disengagement creates invisible risks. Energy drains from teams long before it shows up in performance reports. CEOs who ignore this early warning sign may find their organizations falling behind in ways that are costly and hard to reverse.
When I asked Jim what stood out most this year, he was clear and direct. 'It's the managers,' he said. 'They are more overwhelmed than we have ever seen before. And when managers lose their inspiration, it cascades downward.'
Gallup's U.S. data shows for the first time that managers report more negative daily experiences than their teams.
This is not a small internal issue. It is a system-level threat to culture, performance and resilience.
'The demands on managers have always been high,' Jim said. 'But now they are converging in ways we have not seen before. We are not just dealing with one crisis anymore. They accelerated, reshaping work and life in ways we are still absorbing.'
That sense of cascading disruption, what Jim described as aftershocks, struck me.
Because what we are seeing today is not only the lingering impact of COVID-19.
It is the cumulative effect of a polycrisis, where economic volatility, geopolitical tensions, climate disruption, AI acceleration and social fragmentation collide, magnifying stress across every level of leadership.
In my advisory work, I see the same convergence creating conditions where even highly capable managers lose sight of strategic priorities. When the volume of disruption outpaces clarity, managers retreat into operational survival mode and teams follow.
Jim emphasized the path forward.
'We have to strip the role down to essentials, clear expectations, meaningful conversations and high accountability. Mastering those three shifts the entire trajectory.'
Beyond engagement, Jim highlighted another critical trend, declining thriving.
'In Canada alone,' he pointed out, 'we have seen a 20-point drop in thriving over time. That is not just about work. It is about life experience overall.'
Even among remote workers, who report higher engagement, wellbeing metrics lag and job-seeking intent rises.
Flexibility without leadership connection creates fragmentation.
It is not autonomy itself that sustains engagement. It is autonomy supported by trust, conversation and cultural clarity.
Organizations that focus solely on flexibility as a retention tool risk missing the deeper human equation. As Jim noted, 'Thriving and engagement intertwine. Leaders must pay attention to both.'
In my experience, when thriving is neglected, it does not show up immediately in turnover or satisfaction surveys. It shows up in discretionary effort, the silent withdrawal of energy that compounds over time.
Our discussion naturally turned to AI and its implications for management.
Jim framed it crisply.
'AI can replace certain tasks or it can become a companion that strengthens human leadership. Which path we take depends on how intentional organizations are.'
Looking ahead, AI will likely raise the baseline for management. Even underperforming managers will sound better, deliver crisper feedback and run smoother check-ins. As Jim pointed out, AI has the potential to reduce variance among average managers by helping them sound more polished and organized in their interactions.
But the real risk is a drift toward sameness, where leadership feels polished but hollow. Authenticity, nuance and human connection could quietly erode if AI is used as a shortcut rather than a companion.
'You cannot fake caring—at least not yet,' Jim said. 'In the near term, technology might polish interactions but it cannot replicate authenticity.'
At the same time, truly talented managers will use AI differently, not to mimic connection but to deepen it, extending coaching, aligning development to strengths and making leadership more personal, not less. Whether AI amplifies sameness or amplifies authenticity will depend on how intentionally leaders approach it.
The challenge ahead is not just about learning how to use AI effectively. It is about protecting the authenticity that makes leadership real. In a world where polished sameness becomes easier, genuine connection will become even more valuable and even harder to fake.
Jim raised a key point that few are confronting directly.
'If AI is handling routine outputs, then leaders must redefine what productivity means.' Measuring activity, how many reports filed or how many emails sent, will become obsolete.
Future differentiators will be:
In one organization I supported, leadership redefined productivity as 'increasing the team's capacity for creative problem-solving.' The shift was subtle but transformational. Managers were coached not only on delivery but on how they built adaptive, resilient teams ready for what came next.
Jim reinforced this point.
'Organizations must identify where human variance still matters. As AI shrinks output variance, leadership, culture and innovation will define competitive advantage.'
This reframing is not theoretical. It is becoming operational necessity.
Jim articulated a truth leaders cannot afford to overlook.
'If you do not define your culture now, you will inherit a culture you did not intend.'
Culture is not a background project.
It is the system through which resilience, performance and loyalty are either built or lost. The aftershocks of disruption will not subside on their own.
If organizations wait for a 'return to normal,' they will find themselves building on unstable foundations. Culture is not what stabilizes after disruption. It is what equips organizations to navigate disruption and emerge stronger.
As we closed, I asked Jim what he hopes to see in the State of the Global Workplace 2026.
'I hope we see a rebound in manager engagement,' he said. 'Because when managers thrive, teams thrive.'
The opportunity is real. But it is conditional on leadership choices made now, not after disruption accelerates further.
Leadership teams face a decision point:
The aftershocks of the last five years have reshaped the world of work permanently.
The next chapter of leadership will be written by those who build stability not from circumstances but from culture. The real leadership question is: Will your culture be something you intentionally built to endure or something you realize too late you cannot rebuild?
Disclosure: My day job is focusing on leadership development and strategy research for Gallup.