Are managers becoming an endangered species? Recent studies show a decline in the value and trust that employees place in their managers. Perhaps predictably, there is also a steady decline in the number of employees who aspire to become managers.
A survey conducted by GoodHire showed that 83% of 3,000 American workers across ten unique job sectors believe they can do their job without a manager, and 84% believed they could do their manager’s job (1). Now, global data is reiterating the pattern. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2024 report revealed that employee engagement worldwide dropped for only the second time since 2009 (2). At the same time, stress remains near record highs, and only 21% of employees are reported to “strongly agree” that they trust their organization’s leadership—a number that has been stubbornly low for years (3).
More importantly, the report found that managers themselves are experiencing the sharpest decline in engagement across all workforce groups. This suggests that not only is trust in managers declining, but managers are also losing trust in their own roles, and perhaps increasingly burnt out and disconnected from their organizations.
This is an unfortunate shift because management skills are vital to helping companies continuously improve. Great organizations are not merely collections of siloed individuals doing great things. Collaboration, coordination, and teamwork are essential elements in this formula, and teams need leaders. All of these things become even more challenging in remote working environments.
The challenges organizations face from external pressures have escalated the need for strong management. Variability in demand, supply chain shifts, rapid advancements in AI and automation, the loss of institutional knowledge, and a constricted job market have combined to create an increasingly inhospitable business environment.
Discussions surrounding the diminishing number of employees who want to become managers focus on managers feeling isolated, overworked, unsupported by their organizations, and more recently, targeted as redundant. (4) Others suggest the move to hybrid work environments has made the job of a manager more difficult and less desirable, particularly if it restricts some of the freedoms these environments provide.
It is up to senior leaders to restore the allure of managerial positions by creating an organizational culture that recognizes, supports, and empowers managers. They can do this by understanding what skills are needed, selecting the right people based on their motivations, and by providing the environment and support that managers need. There also needs to be a systematic change in the way managers are trained.
Management Skills are Learned, Not Innate
Managing is extremely difficult in any industry and requires an uncommon blend of skills.
There is always a temptation to promote the most technically capable individual to the role of manager, but this is sometimes not in the organization’s—or the individual’s—best interest.
Leaders must recognize that not all who are good at the job are good at managing those who do the job.
If a football team promotes its starting quarterback to head coach, it risks losing a top player without guaranteeing a successful transition to an effective coach. Excellence on the field and excellence in leadership require very different skill sets.
Compounding this effect is an environment that is often not conducive to managerial success. Over half of all managers receive little or no formal management training. They may learn the technical and tactical skills that they need to do the work they manage, but not the skills they need to manage others. Internal systems and performance tools frequently fail to provide the information and support they are intended to. The result is that many managers never learn the skills they need to be successful.
Properly matching the managerial skills needed with the people who have them (or could be trained to have them) remains a significant opportunity for many organizations.
The Nuances of Management Selection
Building a strong management team requires not only a careful matching of skills, but also careful consideration of motivations.
When someone accepts a managerial role, their job changes. There is often a shift from directly producing things to coaching others to produce things. People who were once peers or colleagues are now who you have to hold accountable.
For some, it may mean a shift away from dealing directly with customers or suppliers. The focus on interacting with people changes to coaching and problem-solving for others. Their success becomes more dependent on the success of others. Many find this shift challenging and appealing—provided the organization reinforces a supportive and collaborative environment.
What motivates a person to pursue a particular professional field may differ from what motivates a person to become a manager.
For some people—particularly those in direct care environments such as healthcare, teaching, or customer service—remaining customer-facing might be perceived as more personally fulfilling than a job in management. Some people work to attain valuable and satisfying technical skills that they enjoy and have no desire to let go of. Others may move into managerial roles for purely financial reasons, not because they find the job more satisfying.
For these types of environments, leaders need to ensure the right people can remain in the right roles. Managers are essential, and so are the skills that organizations develop.
Leaders Need to Support Their Managers
People are drawn to roles where they believe they can be successful and make an impact. Creating an environment where front-line and middle managers can succeed is the first step toward building a strong foundation and, ultimately, a strong organization.
Technical proficiency is not enough, and leaders must provide managers with the necessary coaching, training, tools, and relevant data to optimize their performance.
It is also important to build a culture where managers are viewed as a source of support rather than a source of control. Managers are not designed to police and monitor a workstream. Their role is to be a source of knowledge and support, and to help remove obstacles that impede employee progress. For many organizations, this requires reframing manager-employee interactions from control to collaboration.
Obstacles that force managers into a reactive role, such as constantly firefighting problems, need to be addressed proactively to allow more time for dynamic management tasks such as planning, communicating, following up, and problem-solving.
The Understated Value of Strong Managers
The traditional corporate ladder was developed to help organizations scale knowledge and disperse information. Reliance on the organizational chart to act as a waterfall of knowledge gave way to reliance on technology to store, organize, and disseminate information. This left many organizations with false confidence in their ability to circumvent the need for a strong and stable human component to their management framework.
Managers are the guardians of the character, legacy knowledge, and the culture of the organization. Senior leaders chart the course for the organization, mid-level managers make sure that resources match customer demand, and front-line managers focus on the execution of product or service delivery. All play a critical part in moving an organization forward.
Organizations are positioned to thrive when senior leaders work to restore the allure of managerial positions by creating an organizational culture that recognizes the importance and the competitive value of highly capable management.
