How Can Leaders Improve Employee Engagement and Company Culture?

The Link Between Managers and Employee Engagement

Gallup research finds that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement, meaning managers, more than anything else, influence whether employees are engaged, indifferent or checked out. Gallup studies show how managers’ level of engagement affects those they lead:

• Lower manager engagement is the primary driver of declining global engagement. Manager engagement dropped 9 percentage points from 31% to 22% globally between 2022 and 2025.
• Gallup's research on more than 180,000 manager-led teams shows that more highly engaged managers have more engaged teams.

Engaged teams consistently outperform on outcomes that matter most to organizations, including productivity, profitability, safety and employee wellbeing. Improving employee engagement and performance across an organization starts with addressing the engagement and effectiveness of its managers.

What Are Reasons for Low Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement reflects the health of an organization's culture. When engagement is low, these issues may be contributing factors:

1. Employees lack connection to the organizational culture.
2. Managers aren’t meeting employees’ needs.
3. Managers need professional development as coaches.

1. Employees Lack Connection to Organizational Culture

Organizational culture defines how an organization's purpose and values show up in daily work. Just 2 in 10 employees feel connected to their company’s culture. When employees feel disconnected from the culture, engagement and other workplace indicators suffer.

Gallup finds that employees who strongly agree they feel connected to their organization's culture are:

• 4.3 times as likely to be engaged at work
• 5.3 times as likely to strongly agree they would recommend their organization as a great workplace
• 62% less likely to feel burned out at work very often or always
• 47% less likely to be watching for job opportunities or looking for another job

About one-third, 32%, of employees describe their workplace as isolated or impersonal, lacking the conditions that help people feel connected to their teams. Learn more about why employees are detached and what leaders and managers can do about it by exploring 3 employee engagement strategies for 2026.

2. Managers Aren’t Meeting Employees’ Needs

Even in organizations with a defined culture, engagement is lower when employees lack the day-to-day experiences that meet their 4 types of employee needs: basic, individual contribution, teamwork and growth needs. According to Gallup research on U.S. employee engagement trends from May 2026, only:

• 34% of U.S. employees strongly agree they have the opportunity to do what they do best every day
• 31% strongly agree they have someone at work who encourages their development
• 32% strongly agree they have had opportunities at work to learn and grow in the last year
• 29% strongly agree they have received recognition or praise for doing good work in the last seven days

Managers have direct influence over these and the other elements of employee engagement.

3. Managers Need Professional Development as Coaches

Traditional performance management systems often leave employees with unclear and misaligned expectations, ineffective and infrequent feedback, and unfair or missing evaluation practices. Managers who shift their performance management to reflect coaching practices see higher employee engagement on their teams.

According to Gallup research in It's the Manager, an analysis of data from more than 60 million employees worldwide:

• Employees who receive daily manager feedback are 3 times more likely to be engaged than those who receive it once a year or less.
• Employees whose manager involved them in goal setting were nearly 4 times more likely to be engaged.

Effective manager coaches establish clear expectations, provide frequent and individualized feedback, and create accountability through ongoing conversations grounded in each employee's strengths.

How Can Leaders Develop Managers to Improve Engagement and Culture?

Leaders can develop managers to improve employee engagement and company culture in these ways:

• Prioritize development over training. Invest in ongoing, individualized manager development that builds lasting capabilities rather than one-time training programs that deliver information without producing behavior change.
• Define what great coaching looks like. Establish clear expectations for the frequency, formats and topics of manager coaching conversations with their teams.
• Measure manager effectiveness and make adjustments. Review engagement and culture data at the team level, support managers in taking action and use the results to inform how you support their continued growth.
• Model the behaviors you expect. Invest in your own development and actively coach the managers who report to you.
• Invest in strengths-based development. Give managers a strengths-based framework that equips them to develop their own strengths and coach each employee as an individual rather than applying uniform approaches across a team. Employees who have the opportunity to use their strengths are 6 times more likely to be engaged in their job.

When to Get Help Improving Engagement Through Culture Initiatives

Employee engagement challenges that persist despite leader and manager efforts signal that your organization may benefit from outside perspectives on how to improve your company culture. Here are a few indications:

• Leaders agree that engagement is a problem but disagree on the solution.
• Manager development efforts have produced engagement survey completion rates but not behavior change within teams.
• Engagement scores vary dramatically across teams within the same organization, pointing to inconsistent management practices.
• Employee engagement has plateaued or is declining, even as investment in culture and people programs is increasing.
• Managers and teams have expressed confusion or frustration about processes, roles and responsibilities, but they have no shared framework for understanding and applying how each person works best.

A Unique, Customized Approach Based on Strengths

Gallup helps organizations improve employee engagement through workplace advisory consulting on employee engagement and organizational culture, including a strengths-based approach tied to their unique mission, vision, values and goals. Strengths-based strategies may include the following:

• Deploy CliftonStrengths across the workforce so every employee understands their natural talents.
• Provide individualized CliftonStrengths reports to employees at all levels, demonstrating how their strengths apply to their role and responsibilities.
• Connect employees' strengths to their organization’s specific mission, vision and values so the link between individual contribution and the company’s purpose is clear.
• Equip managers with strengths-based coaching tools tailored to the organization's engagement goals, performance expectations and culture.
• Measure the effectiveness of strengths-based practices to track how strengths-based leadership is improving employee engagement, retention and performance outcomes over time.

Contact us to learn how Gallup can customize a strengths-based approach to help you improve employee engagement and culture in your organization.

Frequently Asked Questions About Employee Engagement

What Is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement is the degree to which employees are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and workplace. Engaged employees are psychological owners of their work who contribute discretionary effort and drive better outcomes for their teams and organizations.

How Are Organizational Culture and Employee Engagement Connected?

Organizational culture sets the direction for an organization. It defines how purpose and values show up in daily work, how leaders make decisions and which behaviors deserve recognition from managers. Employee engagement measures how ready employees are to perform at their best within that culture. When employees feel connected to their organizational culture, engagement follows. Leaders who want to improve employee engagement sustainably must build a culture that employees feel connected to and develop managers who bring that culture to life at the team level.

What Are the 3 Levels of Employee Engagement?

Gallup research identifies 3 levels of engagement, each reflecting a different degree of emotional investment in work:

1. Engaged. Engaged employees bring energy, commitment and purpose to their work every day. They take initiative, contribute ideas and invest in outcomes that move their organizations forward. They are psychological owners of their work.
2. Not engaged. Not engaged employees are present but psychologically detached. They complete their responsibilities without energy or passion. They are not disruptive, but they are not contributing at their full potential either.
3. Actively disengaged. Actively disengaged employees have checked out and are vocal about it. Their unmet needs at work have turned into frustration, and that frustration affects the people around them. Teams with actively disengaged members may experience lower morale, more conflict and reduced productivity overall. 

Why Should Organizations Build an Employee Engagement Strategy?

Gallup's ongoing research on employee engagement and business performance consistently shows that organizations with highly engaged workforces outperform those with low engagement. When comparing organizations in the top quartile of employee engagement with those in the bottom quartile, Gallup finds the following median percent differences in business outcomes:

• 23% in profitability
• 18% in productivity (sales)
• 10% in customer loyalty/engagement
• 51% in turnover for low-turnover organizations
• 63% in safety incidents
• 78% in absenteeism

These are among 11 performance outcomes Gallup has studied across more than 180,000 business and work units.

Organizations that treat employee engagement as a core business strategy are better positioned to attract talent, retain their best people and sustain performance over time.

How Do You Measure Employee Engagement?

Gallup measures employee engagement using the Q¹² survey, which measures elements related to employees’ core needs at work. Managers directly influence these elements, including whether employees know what is expected of them, have opportunities to do what they do best, receive regular recognition and feel their development is encouraged. Organizations that measure engagement with the Q¹² receive team-level data that reveal engagement levels and indicate how to improve team engagement. 

What Is the Manager's Role in Employee Engagement?

Managers are the single greatest influence on employee engagement. Gallup research shows that managers account for 70% of the variance in team-level engagement, meaning the quality of an organization's management directly influences whether employees are engaged, not engaged or actively disengaged. Managers shape engagement by setting clear expectations, providing frequent and meaningful feedback, recognizing employees' contributions and creating opportunities for employees to do what they do best, among other actions that meet employee needs.

Start Building a More Engaged Workforce

Your employee engagement challenges are specific to your managers, your culture and your goals. Gallup works with leaders to build a customized, strengths-based approach that produces measurable improvements in engagement, retention and performance.

Speak with a Gallup expert to learn how we can help.