Managers Report More Negativity Than Their Teams — Why That Matters

Forbes

09-05-2025

Managers might be the most misunderstood role in the modern workplace. A lot rides on them. But they carry the most pressure too.
Read any article about organizational success and you'll hear about visionary leaders, heroic founders, transformative strategies. But behind those headlines and high-wire acts is the quiet, steady presence of managers. Especially middle managers. They're asked to be culture carriers, performance drivers, emotional shock absorbers. All while hitting targets they didn't set, with resources they don't control.
Gallup's latest research confirms what many have sensed: managers are less engaged than before and many are looking for change. They are also struggling more than the people they lead. They report more negative daily experiences. More stress, more sadness, more loneliness.
Manager engagement
Gallup
If you're a CEO, CHRO or senior leader, this isn't just a middle management issue — it's a leadership pipeline crisis in slow motion. Today's disengaged managers are tomorrow's missing leaders.
That should give us pause.
Because when the manager is disengaged, it doesn't stop with them. It spreads. Culture frays. Performance drops. Innovation stalls. The manager is the message — and if they're emotionally underwater, the signal gets distorted.
This isn't just a mental health issue. It's a performance crisis. Gallup's meta-analysis shows 70% of the variance in team engagement comes down to the manager. When they're depleted, it cascades.
And the signs are building. Take this: 41% of employees say they don't have time to learn at work. That includes many managers. Even when the desire to grow is there, the space isn't. Add to that the emotional weight they carry — part performance monitor, part team therapist, part culture keeper — and there's barely time to breathe, let alone lead. Many managers know they're still growing. Four in 10 say they haven't mastered team engagement or performance management. Six in 10 don't feel confident developing people or shaping careers. It's not about effort—it's about support.
This is where AI enters the story. There's hope that AI could ease the load. In the right hands, it might. It can reduce admin clutter — manage schedules, budgets, updates, and reports. That's not just convenience. That's capacity. It could give managers back the time they desperately need to coach, reflect, and develop their teams.
But it won't fix everything.
An Oracle study on AI and the future of work is telling. Workers said robots outperform managers in areas like maintaining schedules, solving problems, and delivering unbiased data. But when it comes to empathy, coaching, and shaping culture — humans still lead.
That's not just a difference in skills. It's a shift in what matters.
But the Oracle study also revealed something chilling – 64 percent of people would trust a robot more than their manager and half have turned to a robot instead of their manager for advice. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. Managers have been set up to fail and then faulted for failing. But part of me still finds it heartbreaking — that we've made technology feel more trustworthy than a human who means well.
As AI absorbs more operational tasks, the differentiators for human managers will evolve. It won't be about who can track more data. It will be about who can hold a better conversation. Build trust. Read the room. Have the hard dialogue. Create safety and spark courage.
So here's the challenge: we can't just automate away the stress. Delegating admin to algorithms won't be enough. We need a new kind of investment.
Leadership development often feels like a luxury brand. Curated. Exclusive. Reserved for those who've arrived. Manager development, in contrast, is mass-produced. Standard modules. Generic content. 'Training' that rarely connects to the realities of the job.
But not all overload looks the same, and not all development should either.
If you want sustainable performance, stop treating manager development like an assembly line. It needs to be tailored and individualized, not templated. Expansive, not extractive. And deeply aligned with where a manager is — emotionally, cognitively and professionally.
Career stage matters. So does emotional load. A first-time manager isn't wrestling with the same challenges as a mid-career one. Pretending otherwise is a setup for disengagement.
Support should feel more like a refueling station than a staircase. Personalized. Just-in-time. Built around what unlocks each manager's next leap.
If 41 percent of employees say they don't have time to learn, your systems aren't just flawed — they're actively blocking development. AI can give time back by clearing inboxes, summarizing meetings and automating workflows. But reclaimed time isn't growth unless it's intentionally reallocated.
Organizations must shift learning from extra to embedded.
If development isn't part of the job, it won't be part of the culture.
Most performance systems track deliverables. Few track depletion.
You can't solve burnout with bonuses. You can't spot it with quarterly reviews. You have to ask — consistently and compassionately — 'How are you really doing?'
Burnout is emotional. Engagement is relational. Make that part of your operating system, not an HR campaign.
Most managers don't need another dashboard. They need the courage to enter tough conversations and the skill to come out the other side with trust intact. Start here:
These aren't soft skills. They are core capabilities, and they should be measured like any other metric. A manager's ability to coach directly impacts retention, trust and innovation. Map these skills to measurable outcomes like retention, customer engagement and collaboration. If it's not being measured, it won't be taken seriously.
If your most grounded, values-driven managers burn out quietly and you only notice when they resign, your definition of success is too narrow. Start expanding the lens:
Rest, reflection and renewal shouldn't be post-burnout interventions. They should be built into your performance architecture. Otherwise, you're rewarding erosion and calling it excellence.
Managers aren't just the middle. They are the infrastructure. The memory. The movement. If you want culture, strategy and performance to last, invest in them early, personally and deeply.
Because when a manager is emotionally spent, it shows up. In meetings that fall flat. In hallway silences. In the idea that never gets voiced. In turnover that looks abrupt but was quietly unfolding for months.
And if we want to protect our future, we need to listen upstream. Not just to what they do, but how they're doing. Because no AI can replace a leader who believes in you, stretches you, and sees your worth before you see it yourself.
That's the kind of leadership today's managers are still capable of. But only if we see them too. And if we invest in them now — before it's too late.