33+ Leadership statistics managers should be aware of

In recent years there have been several reports analyzing the workplace from all kinds of lenses: Remote work, employee engagement, and so on. 

However, most reports don’t focus on the main driver of employee happiness, performance and engagement at work: Managers. In our recent State of One-on-ones report, we surveyed over 200 people managers to find out how they approach one-on-ones and management.

Leadership statistics

1. 58% of managers say they didn’t receive any management training. (MDA Training)
2. The biggest challenge managers face as people leaders is juggling managing their team with their other responsibilities. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
3. The majority of managers, 37%, believe that the most important of their role is to keep the team on track to achieve goals. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
4. Followed by 26% of managers who believe the most important part of their role is to provide direct reports with growth and development opportunities. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
5. The majority of managers, 54%, use Slack as their primary tool to communicate with their team. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
6. 27% of managers use email as their primary communication tool with their team, coming in as the second most used tool after Slack. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
7. 50% of managers surveyed treat one-on-ones as a time for status updates. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
8. 70% of managers aim to understand and eliminate roadblocks during one-on-one meetings. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
9. Across all organization sizes, managers prioritize creating a safe work environment for their team the least. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
10. As an organization’s size grows, a manager’s top priorities shift more towards providing growth and development opportunities. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
11. Only 35% of U.S. managers are engaged in their jobs. (Gallup State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders) 
12. Companies that hire managers based on talent realize a 48% increase in profitability, a 22% increase in productivity, a 30% increase in employee engagement scores, a 17% increase in customer engagement scores and a 19% decrease in turnover. (Gallup State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders) 
13. Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units. (Gallup State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders) 
14. Managers who are not engaged or who are actively Disengaged cost the U.S. economy $319 billion to $398 billion annually. (Gallup State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders)  
15. One in two employees have left their job to get away from their manager at some point in their career. (Gallup State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders)  
16. While there are great female and male managers, Gallup has found that female managers are more likely to be engaged than male managers (41% to 35% respectively). Individuals who work for a female manager are also six percentage points more engaged, on average than those who work for a male manager. (Gallup State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders)  
17. Managers who work for engaged leaders are 39% more likely to be engaged. (Gallup State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders) 
18. Only 22% of managers think that they have created a unique employee engagement experience. (Venngage)

Remote leadership statistics

With the rise of remote work, it’s also very important to understand how remote managers compared to their onsite counterparts.

1. Remote managers experience retention challenges 6x more than onsite managers. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
2. Remote managers struggle two times more than onsite managers when it comes to getting their team to collaborate with one another (22% vs 10%). (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
3. On average, remote managers have 20.9% more direct reports than onsite managers. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
4. Remote managers find hitting team goals almost twice as hard when compared to onsite managers (22% vs. 14%). (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
5. Compared to remote managers, onsite managers struggle twice as much when it comes to juggling to manage their team with other responsibilities (39% onsite vs. 72% remote). (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
6. 95% of remote managers have one-on-one meetings with their direct reports. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
7. 50% of remote managers who have one-on-ones do it on a weekly cadence. 39% have one-on-ones biweekly. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
8. Managers with less than 50% of direct reports working remotely struggle the most with providing value to employees in one-on-ones. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
9. Managers with more than 50% of their team remote struggle most with making time for one-on-one meetings. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
10. Regardless of being remote or onsite, the most used tool managers use to communicate with their teams is Slack. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
11. 50.5% of managers have at least one remote direct report. (SoapBox State of One-on-ones)
12. Managers and leaders (12%) are now twice as likely to work remotely compared to individual contributors. (Krisp.ai)
13. 56% of employees believe managers need to adapt their skills to manage a remote workforce. (PowWowNow)
14. Two-thirds (64%) of US hiring managers surveyed in 2018 said they have the resources to hire remote workers – but more than half (57%) say they don’t have policies in place to support remote working. (Upwork)