Summary:
Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report found that employee engagement continues to decline, with managers experiencing the largest drop in engagement across the workforce. Because managers directly influence communication, accountability, recognition, coaching, and team performance, disengaged managers can create ripple effects that impact morale, retention, productivity, and workplace engagement. This article explores the critical role managers play in employee engagement and why organizations that better support and develop managers are more likely to build stronger, more engaged teams.
Employee engagement in the workplace continues to move in the wrong direction.
According to Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report, global employee engagement dropped to 20% in 2025, marking the second consecutive year of decline after reaching historic highs just a few years earlier.
That means four out of five employees worldwide are either disengaged or actively disengaged at work.
For organizations trying to improve productivity, retention, innovation, and performance, that trend should raise serious concerns. But the report also points toward an important reality many companies still overlook:
Managers have a direct impact on employee engagement.
The quality of leadership employees experience every day shapes how connected, motivated, and invested they feel at work. And if organizations want to improve employee engagement, they need to pay closer attention to how they train, support, and develop managers over time.
How Managers Impact Employee Engagement
When engagement declines, many organizations focus on the usual employee engagement strategies: perks, surveys, compensation adjustments, or workplace flexibility. While those factors matter, Gallup’s research continues to show that managers and leaders have an outsized influence on employee engagement in the workplace.
However, one of the most concerning findings in the 2026 report was not just the decline in overall employee engagement. It was where the largest drop occurred.
Managers experienced the sharpest decline in engagement among all employees. According to Gallup, manager engagement has dropped 9 points since 2022.
That matters because managers shape the daily employee experience more than almost anyone else in an organization. They influence communication, accountability, trust, coaching, recognition, and team performance every single day.
When managers become disengaged, the effects rarely stay isolated to leadership teams. The impact spreads throughout the organization. Disengaged managers are more likely to struggle with communication, delay difficult conversations, provide inconsistent direction, and spend less time coaching and developing employees.
Over time, teams begin to feel that disconnect. Morale drops. Accountability weakens. Employees become less motivated and less connected to their work.
This creates a ripple effect that can influence productivity, retention, collaboration, customer experience, and organizational performance.
In many cases, employees are not disengaging from their work. They are disengaging from unclear, inconsistent, or unsupported leadership experiences.
This is why organizations cannot afford to overlook manager support and development. The way managers communicate, coach, and lead directly shapes how employees experience work every day.
Employees Experience Work Through Their Managers
Improving engagement doesn’t happen because leaders tell people to care more.
It happens when leaders create environments where employees feel trusted, supported, capable, and connected to meaningful work.
Managers who receive ongoing support and development are often better equipped to consistently create those environments.
That includes developing skills like:
- Communication
- Coaching
- Emotional intelligence
- Accountability
- Decision-making
- Conflict management
- Trust-building
- Delegation
- Strategic thinking
These are not just “soft skills.” They are what shape how employees experience work every day.
Organizations with highly engaged teams consistently outperform those with disengaged workforces in areas like profitability, productivity, retention, and customer experience. But those outcomes rarely happen by accident.
They are usually the result of leadership behaviors repeated consistently over time.
Why Manager Engagement Creates a Ripple Effect
The role of managers has become significantly more complex over the past several years.
Managers are navigating larger teams, hybrid work environments, organizational restructuring, economic uncertainty, technology changes, and growing expectations around employee well-being and communication.
At the same time, many managers receive little formal leadership training before stepping into leadership roles. Many organizations still promote employees based primarily on technical expertise or tenure rather than leadership capability.
The result is predictable. People are asked to lead teams without being taught how to lead effectively.
Organizations that invest in helping managers strengthen their leadership skills are often better positioned to close that gap.
Instead of expecting managers to figure out leadership through trial and error, organizations can equip them with practical tools, frameworks, coaching, and ongoing support to improve both leaders’ confidence and team performance.
This matters even more as workplace expectations continue to evolve. Employees increasingly expect leaders to provide clarity, feedback, recognition, development, and meaningful communication. Without proper leadership training, many managers struggle to meet those expectations.
Building Employee Engagement Through Daily Interactions
One of the biggest misconceptions about employee engagement is that it comes from large initiatives or company-wide campaigns.
In reality, employee engagement is often shaped by small daily interactions.
Employees pay attention to things like:
- Whether expectations are clear
- How feedback is delivered
- Whether leaders listen
- How recognition is handled
- Whether accountability feels fair
- How decisions are communicated
- Whether leaders follow through consistently
These everyday interactions shape how employees feel about their work, their team, and their future within the organization.
This is one reason ongoing manager development and support matter more than one-time training events. Employees experience leadership daily. Leaders need opportunities to learn, practice, refine, and strengthen those skills continuously.
Organizations that continuously support managers in developing communication, coaching, and leadership skills often create stronger engagement, trust, and performance over time.
Employee Engagement Is a Business Performance Issue
Employee engagement directly affects organizational performance.
Disengagement contributes to lower productivity, higher turnover, weaker collaboration, reduced innovation, and increased burnout. Gallup estimates that disengaged employees cost the global economy trillions in lost productivity each year.
On the other hand, highly engaged employees are more likely to:
- Take initiative
- Solve problems proactively
- Stay with the organization longer
- Deliver stronger customer experiences
- Collaborate effectively
- Adapt to change more successfully
Organizations often invest heavily in systems, technology, and operational improvements while underinvesting in leadership capability. But even the best strategies struggle when leadership execution is inconsistent.
Supporting managers more effectively helps organizations improve the human side of performance.
And in many cases, that becomes the difference between organizations that sustain engagement and those that continue losing momentum.
Organizations That Support Managers Will Have an Advantage
Gallup’s 2026 findings should serve as a wake-up call for organizations everywhere.
Employee engagement is declining. Managers are under pressure. Employees continue searching for stronger leadership experiences.
Organizations cannot increase employee engagement through messaging alone. They need managers who know how to communicate clearly, coach effectively, build trust, develop people, and create environments where employees can perform at their best.
That requires intentional support, career development, and investment in managers over time.
Leadership development programs like Crestcom LEADER can help managers strengthen the communication, coaching, and decision-making skills that directly influence employee engagement and team performance over time.
Organizations that consistently invest in helping managers grow will likely have a significant advantage in attracting talent, retaining employees, improving workplace engagement, and building stronger teams in the years ahead.
Because employee engagement is rarely just about employees, it is a reflection of leadership.
