We have all heard it before that people leave managers, not organizations. The top benefit any employee can have is an excellent manager. However, no one is talking about it. Moreover, how you should recruit with that in mind. You can pitch your great managers as a benefit.
About one in two employees have left a job to get away from a manager during his or her career, according to Gallup's State of the American Manager report. Also, the people who made the change, report that they improved their overall life.
Unfortunately, bad managers are plentiful. They leave an impression. Everyone relates to the sense of dread about coming to work when a manager makes an otherwise excellent job feel like a dead end.
However, the effects of bad management reach further than just engagement — they can undermine your organization's efforts to help employees improve their health.
"Having a bad manager is often a one-two punch: Employees feel miserable while at work, and that misery follows them home, compounding their stress and putting their well-being in peril." — Gallup
Organizations make a substantial investment in benefits programs. The goal of these programs is to retain employees, lower healthcare costs, and eliminate things from employees worry about so they can concentrate fully on their job.
"It should go without saying, if the person who works at your company is 100 percent proud of the brand and you give them the tools to do a good job, and they are treated well, they're going to be happy." — Richard Branson
Employers’ Health Strategic Priorities
The average health benefit cost per employee is outpacing workers’ earnings and inflation by about two to one according to Mercer's National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans.
When employers were asked to name the strategies that will be the most important for managing health costs in the next five years, at the top of the list they placed:
- managing high-cost claimants
- creating a culture of health
- implementing behavioural health strategies
When employee health suffers, your organization suffers. Organizations spend hundreds of millions of dollars to keep employees healthy. However, the actions of a poor manager negate the positive effects of your organization's benefits programs.
Unhappy and unhealthy employees become disengaged. They affect:
- absenteeism
- performance
- culture
- customer ratings
- quality
- innovation
- profit
Few organizations would knowingly undermine their efforts to improve employee health and well-being. For example, an organization would not encourage smoking or other harmful practices scientifically linked to health problems. However, these organizations continue to promote and keep people in management roles that create detrimental health conditions.
Stress at Work Is Common
An Australian study determined that workplace stress affects 73 percent of employees. However, only 12 percent of workers believe their organization makes business decisions in the best interest of the well-being of employees. Other highlights of the study include:
- 73 percent of workers are suffering from work-related stress
- 51 percent of workers believe unrealistic workload expectations have the most significant negative impact on well-being in the workplace
- 25 percent of workers would sacrifice company perks for better well-being in their workplace
- 21 percent would forgo a promotion for better well-being
- 19 percent would forfeit a pay raise for better well-being
Your stressed worker is two and a half times more likely to look for a new position in the next year than your unstressed colleague. As well as that, 85 percent of staff reported that they believe that employers are responsible for addressing stress in the workplace proactively.
Bad Managers — A Health Hazard
A bad manager damages their employees' health. Moreover, customer service suffers as does your bottom line. It is time to start thinking that poor management is preventable.
"Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores." — Gallup
While a bad manager can ruin a decent job, the good news is that a great manager can make an excellent job even better. So, it works both ways. The influence your managers have — good or bad — is enormous.
Consider — if people leave good jobs because of bad managers — would people seek positions that offer great managers?
I guess that most would if they knew where the great managers work. Most organizations do not currently think about great managers as a benefit. They do not publicize that fact to attract talented prospects.
This insight is a tremendous opportunity. Organizations should publicize great managers as part of their employee value proposition to attract the best talent. Moreover, to keep the star performers you have worked so hard to find and hire, you need to deliver on the promise of excellent management continually.
We have hundreds of management roles benchmarked. We know the traits that high-performing leaders possess. Our insights facilitate the creation of a custom onboarding process to enable the new manager to develop strategies to manage their challenge areas. Ensure you offer training and development for managers throughout their careers.
While working for a great manager is a great benefit you can offer, supplying training and growth opportunities tops the list. The prime driver of a person’s decision to leave an organization is as follows:
- 52 percent due to a lack of development opportunities
- 40 percent due to bad leader/manager
- 11 percent due to pay
Management matters, but leadership matters more
Although managers have a role in leadership, people have separate experiences with each of these groups. Leaders have a much stronger effect on employee commitment levels.

Intent to stay: The combined effect of Managers and Leadership
People management is the most challenging aspect of sustaining a thriving enterprise
Organizations need to devote more attention to promoting and developing good managers, and then start letting the world know they have these excellent leaders.
Here is advice for building a healthy and thriving organization. It starts with your managers.
Understand the Attributes of Great Managers and Great Leaders
"Eighteen percent of those currently in management roles demonstrate a high level of talent for managing others, while another 20 percent show a basic talent for it. Combined, they contribute about 48% higher profit to their organizations than average managers do." — Gallup
Only one in ten people possess the natural talent to manage. These managers have a strong ability to:
- genuinely care about the well-being and fulfillment of each person on their team
- put the right people in the proper roles – use best-fit staffing
- build a culture of clear accountability
- inspire employees with a compelling vision
- motivate each of their team members
- coach and develop each person by focusing on his or her unique strengths
- make decisions based on productivity, not politics
- shape and structure the work to best suit the talents of their team
- become more agile each day
- build trust and dialogue with each team member
Our ladder of leadership is a performance competency model for driving the highest level of performance at three corporate leadership levels. The framework supplies insight into where leaders at various levels need to focus on what they must both learn and let go as they move up.
Select Managers Based on Management Traits
Most people get a promotion to management because of tenure or their expertise in their non-managerial role. These criteria have nothing to do with excellent management ability.
When hiring, often the best-qualified candidate is not a high performer — that is why they are available! The differences boil down to:
- Great Candidates — what they have
- Top Performers — what they do
The insights from our performance analytics quickly show the shortcomings, and you hire the candidate that has the highest likelihood of being a top performer.

How to Keep Your Stars and Have Remarkable Managers
Every new member in a hierarchical organization climbs the hierarchy until he/she reaches his/her level of incompetence” — The Peter Principle
Or simply that — Any employee in a hierarchy will rise to the level of their incompetence. Peter argued that organizations tend to reward good performance at the rank-and-file level with promotion to management, even when the roles demand utterly different skills. Great teachers do not necessarily make great principals. Star athletes often flop as team executives. A person good at selling widgets may be hopeless at managing a team of widget salespersons.
Effective people management is a unique talent set
It is unlikely that someone who excelled in a previous role will be able to make a seamless transition to a managerial position.
In our ladder of leadership, an individual must possess at least four of the ten performance competencies to enter a given management level. If they do not have this minimum level, they will be constantly stressed. They have a 76 percent probability that they will be a marginal performer or worse. With the minimum level, they can learn to develop strategies to deal with their challenge areas. Do not set your good performers up for failure.
"Organizations fail to choose the [managerial] candidate with the right talent for the job 82% of the time." — Gallup
Selecting excellent managers takes a rigorous, validated process. We measure 85 performance traits. Moreover, we can predict the likelihood of success in a manager role with 85 percent validity.
Management requires specialized talent just like any other job skill. Teamwork and collaboration are the most helpful power skills in the workplace, followed by critical thinking, relationship-building, public speaking, and persuasive writing. However, power skills often go overlooked in the selection process.
While development is useful, the most effective method for getting great managers is rigour and accountability when finding, hiring, and promoting people with the natural performance traits that align with high-performing managers.
“The most successful among us are walking flaws who have maximized one or two strengths.” — Tim Ferriss
Finding Hidden Talent
Great managers may be hiding in another role in your organization. We encourage performance assessments for all of your staff to create focused development plans. It also enables you to find these hidden gems.
Interestingly, very few of us know our performance strengths. We stumble around until we get lucky and find a fulfilling role. We need to discover our micro-motives and pursue those roles. For some folks, it will be in management.
We have studied, tested, and use the best instrument for selecting people with natural managerial talents. You need to get the right people in management roles. You will see significant improvements across your business, including in employee health.
We recommend that you select managers with at least an 86% probability of being rated as above average or as high-performers. Most managers that are currently selected have a 25% chance of meeting this standard. So, increase your chance of having a great leader by 3.5 times.
Competencies | Manager | Executive | C-Suite |
---|---|---|---|
Leads Decisively | X | X | X |
Thrives on Chaos | X | X | X |
Builds Consensus | X | ||
Communicates Clarity | X | ||
Maintains Accountability | X | ||
Demonstrates Character | X | X | |
Overcomes Adversity | X | X | |
Reasons Critically | X | X | |
Thinks Conceptually | X | X | |
Manages Stress | X | ||
Demonstrates Energetic Enthusiasm | X | X | |
Focus on Results | X | X | |
Inspires Others | X | X | |
Drives Achievement | X | ||
Exercises Political Influence | X | ||
Initiates Independently | X | ||
Seeks Innovations | X | ||
Sustains Profitability | X |
Grouping of The Traits

Promote Great Managers as Your Organization's Top Benefit
There are countless more poor managers than excellent managers. So, this benefit is rare and difficult for most organizations to achieve. It will differentiate your organization from the rest. You become a magnet for top talent. Follow these steps
- understand the breadth of influence managers have on your organization
- find and hire talented ones
- provide learning and growth opportunities
- broaden their expertise and successes — make them part of your brand
- feature your great managers on your hiring website
Your great managers should be a significant part of your employee value proposition. Ensure prospective employees know the benefit that an incredibly gifted manager will offer to their work and life.
Remember — about half of all people searching for a new job left a job because of a bad manager. Show them that the grass will be greener with your organization.
When an individual is considering two organizations in their job search, all other things being equal, they will choose the organization with better managers.
Great Managers Are The Gift That Keeps Giving
Having happy, healthy employees mean a better culture. Moreover, it means a more productive, and profitable organization. When employees love their jobs — they spread the word. These accolades set you up to hire and keep more top talent.
Concluding Thoughts
All managers are in a leadership role. They need to be both a great manager and a great leader.
People often blame managers when they should be blaming the system. Some people blame their manager for a lack of career progression. Sometimes they are right. However, often the progression of a manager’s direct reports is out of his or her control. Factors such as how the company is structured, what type of work the business is prioritizing and how the organization thinks about applying people to that work all come into play.
Skilled managers make a big difference, of course. That is why selecting the right ones needs to be a top priority. Also, there are things that an organization can do to create an environment for engagement, which managers alone cannot do. In addressing a retention issue, create learning, development, and growth opportunities. You need to offer real chances for progression for managers and staff.
Learn how Allenvision can help your organization attract, hire, onboard, develop, and keep great managers:
- Contact us for strategic insights to define and establish a powerful employment brand that positions your leaders as an employee benefit.
- Please inquire about our best-fit staffing solutions for identifying and selecting manager talent.
- Offer our High-Performance Teams program to your managers to ensure they have the right strategies and tools for engaging employees.
Want to know if a candidate is is likely to exceed expectations?
A high performer can deliver 4OO% MORE PRODUCTIVITY than the average performer. Use Best-fit Staffing for business success.
We can predict the likelihood that a candidate will meet and exceed expectations with 85% reliability. We assess candidates against the benchmarks of high performers in the same role. You know that you are genuinely getting a top performer—not just the best of a bad lot! We can your “A-list” pile, identifying the five to interview and complete analysis of the final two or three. Then onboard your new hire with a development plan.
Let’s Talk!