COMMENT BY WENDY LAMBOURNE ON THIS ARTICLE: The latest validation of the Legitimate Leadership principles comes from Gallup’s 2023 survey of employees’ perceptions of their interactions with their managers. Highlights were firstly the link between trust in leadership and employee engagement and retention. Secondly, the finding that a huge 70% in employee engagement is attributable to the manager-employee relationship. Finally, what is needed to enable managers to be coaches, not bosses – in Legitimate Leadership terms, care and growth of their people.

OUR SUMMARY OF THE GALLUP RESULTS: To help leaders and managers more effectively lead their teams and organizations to greater success, Gallup annually measures US employees’ perceptions of their interactions with leaders and managers, as well as their experiences related to performance management in their organization.

In 2023, 23% of respondents agreed with the statement, ‘I trust the leadership of this organization’.

Gallup says this matters because 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.

Says Gallup: ‘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 that they trust the leadership of their organization are four times as likely to be engaged and 58% less likely to be watching for or actively seeking a new job.’

Gallup says this is particularly important because 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.

‘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 that 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.’

The survey found that US managers had improved in some of these areas, but they still have much room to grow.

On performance management, Gallup says: ‘Traditional performance management practices, with decades-old, rigid and frustrating review processes, are not only antiquated – they are 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.

‘Almost four-fifths of the global workforce has either quietly or loudly quit, costing the world’s economy almost $9 trillion per year.’

The survey found that while US 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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