You're Not Imagining It: The Data Now Shows What You've Been Feeling As A Manager

The case for valuing managers as linchpins.

Managers are linchpins. Photo by Lucas van Oort on Unsplash

How many of you have been feeling like it is impossibly hard to be a manager lately?

How many of you have questioned whether you are the right person to lead right now?

Or wondered if you are the right person for the role you are in?

Have you been awake at night wondering how to take care of your team in the face of constraints that feel insurmountable?

You are not imagining these things and it's not just you.

While I've been increasingly hearing these themes, with varying flavors, in client calls over the last six months, there is new data confirming this is a global trend. Gallup released their 2025 State of the Global Workplace report, and reading it felt like someone wrote a report based on zoom and telephone calls I am in. The data validates what you've been feeling in your bones:

Managing people has become exponentially harder, and the traditional approaches aren't working.

The Numbers That Had Me Nodding

Let's look at the data to validate what is so that we can begin to imagine what might be.

Manager engagement dropped in 2024 with younger managers and female mangers more deeply impacted. The data was not disaggregated for other groups leaving me curious about the potential for deeper impact on LGBTQI+ and BIPOC managers.

If you're reading this and you're a younger manager, or a woman in leadership, or both, the exhaustion you're feeling isn't a personal failing. It's a documented global challenge.

Here is new to me data that really stood out: 70% of team engagement depends on the manager. That means that for 7 out of 10 people on a team, their ability to show up, to find meaning in their work, to feel connected and motivated, depends on their manager.

No wonder you're tired.

Mangers are an incredible leverage point in an organization. When we think about our overall organizational health, productivity, or the potential to make impact—managers are key to success. Managers are linchpins.

What's Really Happening

While the Gallup Poll data does not dig into this specifically, I have long believed: We've asked managers to be the emotional infrastructure of the modern workplace while giving them too little training or support to do it. And without valuing the unseen emotional labor that is required to create change, particularly in uncertain times.

Only 44% of managers globally have received any management training.

People have been promoted because they were good at their jobs (or because of politics or timing) and then they are expected to know how to intuitively navigate:

• Post-pandemic team dynamics

• Remote and hybrid work challenges

• Increased mental health needs

• Budget constraints

• Rapid organizational changes

• Their own burnout while supporting others through theirs

We'd never hand people the keys to a complicated machine they have never seen and then leave them to it saying, "Figure it out. Oh and everyone else's success depends on how well you do."

The Cost of This Broken Approach

There is a cost to this method of management. Gallup reports $438 billion in lost productivity, which means to me that there is lost time for impact, lost progress towards solutions, lost human connection built in the process.

The human cost to the work we care about is real:

• The manager who goes home every day feeling like they're failing their team

• The team members who've stopped caring because they don't feel seen or supported

• The organizations that wonder why their mission-driven work feels so heavy

There Are Solutions Within Reach

The Gallup report includes a section titled "Hope in the Data," and it reads like a roadmap for the frameworks I have used for years with leaders and organizations. Gallup identifies three critical actions that can transform this challenge:

1. Ensure All Managers Receive Training

Not someday. Not when the budget allows. Now. Let's acknowledge that mentoring, training, supporting managers is critical if we are doing work that matters.

Organizations that provide basic management training cut manager disengagement in half. This is a huge potential return for an investment that can be standardized and repeated.

What you can do:

• If you're a manager: Ask for training. Be specific about what you need.

• If you're a leader: Make manager development non-negotiable in your budget.

• If you're an organization: Stop promoting people into management roles without equipping them for success.

2. Teach Managers Effective Coaching Techniques

This isn't about becoming a life coach. This is about growing our ability to shift from doing the nuts and bolts tasks to seeing bigger picture and guiding teams towards outcomes. It's about learning how to take good care of the people doing the front-line work.

Organizations that implement this see 20-28% improvements in manager performance. Their teams experience up to 18% higher engagement.

What you can do:

• Learn to ask better questions instead of having all the answers

• Practice reflective listening—really hearing what people are telling you

• Focus on developing people's strengths rather than just fixing their weaknesses

• Create regular check-ins that go beyond task management

3. Increase Manager Wellbeing Through Ongoing Development

When organizations provide both training AND ongoing support for manager development, manager thriving increases from 28% to 50%.

What you can do:

• Build peer support networks for managers

• Create spaces for managers to share challenges without judgment

• Recognize that manager wellbeing isn't a luxury—it's a sign of a well-functioning organization

• Invest in programs that address the intersection of empathy and sustainability

The Path Forward

I believe the solution isn't to care less. The world needs your care, your dedication, and your commitment to making things better.

The solution is to care with a toolbox of skills.

It's learning how to hold space for others while maintaining boundaries that protect your own well-being. It's developing empathy as a muscle that gets stronger with use rather than depleted. It's creating systems and practices that allow you to show up hard without burning out.

This isn't just personal development work—it's organizational transformation work. We change ourselves to change the world. Because when managers thrive, teams thrive. When teams thrive, missions advance. When missions advance, the world gets a little bit better.

A Personal Note

If you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're questioning whether you're cut out for leadership, if you're wondering how to keep caring without depleting yourself—you're not alone. You're not broken. You're human, doing impossibly complex work in challenging times.

And there are solutions. Real, research-backed, practical solutions. The solutions require us to invest in developing skills and to build frameworks and approaches that center the needs of managers as linchpins within the important work that we are doing.

We can change these trends. It will take intention, investment, and a commitment to looking at management differently.

If you're a manager reading this: You matter. Your well-being matters. The way you show up for your team matters enormously, but not more than your own sustainability.

If you're a leader reading this: Your managers are the key to everything you're trying to accomplish. Investing in their development isn't nice-to-have—it's mission-critical.

If you're someone who cares about creating workplaces where people can thrive: This is a moment of possibility. The research is clear, the tools exist, and the need has never been greater.

What we do next matters.

Take good care,

Shannon

I help visionary leaders build resilient teams that thrive through uncertainty—through practical frameworks that create immediate impact.

Website | Substack | LinkedIn | Instagram

P.S. If you want to dig into the full Gallup report, you can find it here. I'm particularly interested in your thoughts on pages 11-13, where they outline their action plan. Does it resonate with what you're experiencing? What would you add?

P.P.S. If you're working in a mission-driven organization that's ready to invest in manager development, I'd love to hear from you.

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Join me at Emory August 23-24

Your Best Public Health Life: Well-being and Impact - Final 2025 Offering

Co-created and taught by Dr. Juan Leon and Shannon Weber, this in-person, retreat-style weekend course teaches evidence-based approaches to support public health leaders navigating change, burnout, or career transitions.

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