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Leadership & Management

What We Measure

To help leaders and managers more effectively lead their teams and organizations to greater success, Gallup measures U.S. employees' perceptions of their interactions with leaders and managers, as well as their experiences related to performance management in their organization.

Trust in Leadership

I trust the leadership of this organization.
Strongly Agree
23%
1
Why it matters

Why Do Leadership Research and Management Metrics Matter?

By examining employee perceptions of leadership, management and how employees experience performance management in their organization, leaders discover opportunities to implement leadership best practices that can positively affect their organizational outcomes.

Explore our latest insights for these three areas:

Leadership | Management | Performance Management

Leadership

Why Employee Perceptions of Leadership Matter When leaders and managers are trusted and inspirational, employees find meaning in their work, feel like part of your culture and perform better. For example, employees who strongly agree they trust the leadership of their organization are 4.0 times as likely to be engaged and 58% less likely to be watching for or actively seeking a new job.

  • Do your leaders build trust among your employees?
  • Do they foster confidence in your organization's financials?
  • Do they inspire enthusiasm for the future?

Explore the trends below to see how leaders' ability to build trust, confidence and enthusiasm has fluctuated in recent years.

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Management

Why Managers' Experiences Matter Managers are feeling the squeeze. Today’s post-pandemic workforce era has been marred by widespread disruptions, including declines in employee engagement and wellbeing, record turnover and hiring rates, and an unprecedented increase in hybrid work. Ultimately, it's the manager’s job to bring stability to disruption and lead their teams into the future, yet these responsibilities have never been more demanding.

As a result, managers’ own employee engagement and overall satisfaction have substantially declined, and their intent to leave has increased.

Going forward, it will be critical to support and develop managers, as they account for 70% of the variance in their own team’s engagement.

Why Employee Perceptions of Management Matter Great managers coach people to succeed. They communicate clearly, support and advocate for employees, and cultivate the type of work environment that breeds innovation and collaboration.

Most employees indicate their manager is not fulfilling these responsibilities. Effective manager development, which trains managers to be a coach, not a boss, provides employees with the type of manager who helps them achieve the best possible outcomes.

How well do your managers communicate, support their team members, and build a work environment that is trusting and open?

View the trends below to see how managers in the U.S. have improved in some areas, yet they still have much room to grow.

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Performance Management

Why Exceptional Performance Management Matters Traditional performance management practices, with decades-old, rigid and frustrating review processes, are not only antiquated -- they're ineffective.

Shifting from a mindset of traditional to re-engineered performance management requires managers to think of themselves as coaches, not bosses. And when managers have timely, performance-related conversations that reflect this principle, manager-employee interactions feel encouraging, engaging and rewarding in ways that annual reviews do not.

  • Are your managers involved in goal setting?
  • Are they focused on developing their employees' strengths?
  • How frequently do they provide meaningful feedback to their team members?

While managers are improving in some performance management practices, they are losing traction when it comes to driving performance by providing frequent, meaningful feedback to their team members.

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Results for the Gallup poll of U.S. employees are based on self-administered web surveys of a random sample of adults who are aged 18 and older, working full time or part time for organizations in the United States, and members of the Gallup Panel. Gallup uses probability-based, random sampling methods to recruit its Panel members. Gallup weighted the obtained samples to correct for nonresponse. Nonresponse adjustments were made by adjusting the sample to match the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education and region. Demographic weighting targets were based on the most recent Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

In line charts on this webpage, Gallup labels data points with a year and month. Years that have only one data point labeled with the year and "Jan" (abbreviated for "January") reflect annual survey results. Years that have one data point labeled with a specific month besides January or that have multiple data points labeled with specific months reflect results obtained during the noted month(s). When Gallup’s survey field dates for one data point occur in more than one month, Gallup labels the data point with the ending month.

Manager employee engagement, overall satisfaction and intent to leave details on this page are based on the following:

  • Employee engagement:
    • The percentage of engaged managers is determined by Gallup’s Employee Engagement Index, based on Gallup Q12® survey items.
  • Overall satisfaction:
    • Survey item: How satisfied are you with your company as a place to work?
    • Response options: Scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being “extremely satisfied.”
  • Intent to leave:
    • Survey item: To what extent are you currently looking for a different job than the one you have now?
    • Response options, with Gallup using combined “actively looking” and “watching for opportunities” responses as “% Watching for or actively seeking new job” data:
      • I am actively looking for another job.
      • I am watching for opportunities, but not actively looking.
      • I am not looking for another job.
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Next Steps

How Does Your Workplace Compare?

Global and regional data tell a story -- but the story of your organization is different. Check out the resources below for your next steps:

Develop leaders and managers at all levels. Explore Gallup's leadership development framework and learn more about how we can help build your company's leadership strength.

Learn More about building leadership strength

Transform your managers into coaches. Discover the principles, tools and techniques taught in Boss to Coach to help bosses at your organization become truly inspiring coaches.

Find Out More about Boss to Coach

Shift your focus to performance development. Learn more about our research on the power of embracing performance development over traditional performance management.

Reach Out to Us about performance management

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