- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
The Breaking Point of Work
According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 report, employee engagement has fallen to 21% worldwide, a two-point drop that cost the global economy an estimated $438 billion in lost productivity. It’s only the second time in more than a decade that engagement has declined this sharply — the last was during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
The cause isn’t employees. It’s managers.
Manager engagement plummeted from 30% → 27%, while individual contributors stayed flat at 18%. Young managers (under 35) dropped five points. Female managers fell seven. And the trend is now cascading through teams, culture, and performance.
At High Achiever, we call this the Continuity Crisis — the widening gap between executive intent, manager capability, and frontline execution.
For a deeper exploration of how disconnection destroys performance, read The Continuity Crisis: The $8.8 Trillion Productivity Problem.
The $438 Billion Wake-Up Call: Why Manager Engagement Is the Leverage Point
Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workplace just confirmed what we’ve been saying for years: we’re in the middle of a manager crisis, and it’s costing the global economy $438 billion in lost productivity.
Global employee engagement dropped from 23% to 21% in 2024 — only the second major decline in the last 12 years, matching the drop seen during the pandemic lockdowns.
But here’s what should keep every executive up at night: while overall engagement declined slightly, manager engagement collapsed, falling from 30% to 27%, with the steepest drops among younger managers (-5 points) and female managers (-7 points).
This isn’t just another engagement survey. It’s a flashing red light pointing directly at the leadership gap we’ve been tracking since founding High Achiever in 2018.
When manager engagement falls, it doesn’t stop there — it cascades into team performance, customer outcomes, and company culture. As Gallup notes, 70% of team engagement is directly attributable to the manager.
If that number doesn’t move, nothing else will.
This is the leverage point in leadership — the moment where a company either builds continuity or breaks under its own complexity.
What’s Really Breaking: Context, Not Capacity
Managers aren’t burned out because they can’t handle the work. They’re burned out because they’re operating without context — the alignment between mission, expectations, and decision-making authority.
Since the pandemic, most have been asked to “square the circle” between:
Executive demands for growth and transformation, and
Employee expectations for flexibility, meaning, and wellbeing.
They’re expected to hold everything together — reorgs, AI adoption, cultural change — yet most have never been trained to lead through it.
Gallup found that less than half of the world’s managers (44%) have ever received formal management training, and those who do are half as likely to be actively disengaged.
That’s not just a statistic. It’s a roadmap.
It’s why we built Leadership by Design — a framework that helps leaders operate with clarity, self-awareness, and measurable context. It turns leadership from an accidental act into a designed system.
The Compounding Effect of Disengagement
Disengagement doesn’t start in the cubicle; it starts in the corner office. When managers are disconnected, team engagement drops 70%, according to Gallup. Productivity slows. Absenteeism climbs. Retention erodes.
And it doesn’t stop there. Gallup’s data show global wellbeing has fallen to 33% “thriving”, with older and female managers seeing the steepest declines. Manager burnout eventually drives higher turnover, lower trust, and weaker performance — the silent tax on growth.
At High Achiever, we’ve seen it firsthand. Engagement isn’t an HR initiative. It’s a leadership system problem. And systems only change when leaders do.
To understand the psychology behind this, explore The Primary Role of a Leader — where we break down how context, consistency, and emotional commitment create performance loops that scale.
AI Won’t Fix Culture — Leaders Will
Gallup’s CEO, Jon Clifton, notes that this year’s data captures “our last snapshot of a workforce on the cusp of seismic change.” AI is transforming every function, but without engaged, emotionally committed managers, technology only accelerates dysfunction.
The future belongs to companies that use AI to free up time for human leadership — coaching, clarity, and connection. That’s where High Achiever works: helping executives build Revenue Operating Systems that align people, process, and purpose — so AI amplifies performance rather than replaces it.
If this intersection of AI and leadership resonates with you, read Leveraging AI for Account Research and Discovery — it shows how the right technology, used through the right mindset, transforms your sales and leadership motion.
The $9.6 Trillion Opportunity
Gallup estimates that if every organization reached full engagement, it would unlock $9.6 trillion in global productivity — about 9% of world GDP.
Even reaching 70% engagement (the level of best-practice companies) would create an economic and cultural boom. The path forward isn’t mysterious; it’s measurable.
Gallup outlines three actions, and each aligns directly with the High Achiever Leadership-by-Design framework:
1. Train Every Manager — and Cut Disengagement in Half
Gallup: “Basic management training halves active disengagement.”
At High Achiever, we teach leaders to build systems where managers succeed by design, not by luck. Our Leadership by Design™ curriculum equips managers to:
Translate strategy into daily behaviors,
Lead through context, not control, and
Create alignment loops between executive vision and frontline action.
When managers understand the “why” behind their work, they build teams that own the “how.”
Explore the principle in action in Accelerated Learning: The Learn–Teach–Learn Cycle — our approach to compounding leadership capability across teams.
2. Teach Coaching as a Core Competency
Gallup found that managers trained in coaching techniques improved their performance by 20–28%, and their teams’ engagement rose by up to 18%.
At High Achiever, this is foundational. Our 51/49 Principle of Value™ teaches managers to give more than they take — to approach every conversation with curiosity, empathy, and accountability. Coaching isn’t a soft skill; it’s a multiplier of clarity.
To understand how this transforms culture, see The 51/49 Principle of Value — where we unpack how giving the extra 1% becomes the differentiator of world-class teams.
3. Develop and Sustain Manager Wellbeing
Gallup’s final insight: basic training raises manager “thriving” from 28 → 34%, but adding ongoing development and encouragement raises it to 50%.
That’s the compounding loop we call Accelerated Learning (Learn–Teach–Learn) — a system that builds capacity, confidence, and continuity over time. When managers learn, apply, and teach forward, they anchor culture.
For more on this growth mindset and performance flywheel, explore The 2% Advantage — a High Achiever framework designed to move leaders into the top two percent of performers in any organization.
The Human ROI
Engagement isn’t just an economic metric. It’s emotional infrastructure.
High Achiever clients see what Gallup calls out in the data:
Teams with clear context outperform by double-digit margins.
Coaching cultures reduce voluntary turnover by 20–40%.
Emotionally committed managers create exponential retention, resilience, and revenue.
Leaders who invest in people don’t just increase productivity — they expand potential.If you haven’t yet, also read Emotional Commitment: The Leadership Ripple Effect — a powerful lens on how leadership energy cascades through culture.
The Call to Action
The Gallup report ends with a simple truth:
“When managers thrive, so do their teams.”
At High Achiever, we build systems that make that possible. Our frameworks help executives and leadership teams:
Diagnose engagement through Context Loops,
Align mindsets, toolsets, and skillsets, and
Build a culture of continuity, performance, and emotional commitment.
