Engagement Is Every Leaders’ Business
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If managers drive engagement, why does engagement remain so low? Research consistently identifies frontline managers as the single biggest driver of employee engagement and retention, yet engagement levels remain stubbornly low, suggesting that organizations continue to treat engagement as a soft skill rather than as a systematic management process.By Bruce Bolger
Managers Matter
The Problem: Engagement Is Still Treated as a Soft Skill
What Deming, Drucker, and Peters Would Likely Recognize
Engagement Is a System, Not a Program
The Missing Management Discipline
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For years, research from Gallup, SHRM, and other organizations has pointed to frontline managers as one of the primary reasons employees stay, perform, and grow—or leave. Gallup famously reports that managers account for approximately 70% of the variance in employee engagement, making them arguably the most influential factor in workplace performance. Yet despite decades of leadership training, employee engagement remains at historically low levels.
The evidence suggests that the problem is not a lack of awareness. Rather, organizations continue to approach engagement as an interpersonal leadership skill instead of a systematic process that requires clear purpose, goals, communication, feedback, recognition, development, and continuous improvement working together as a management system.
Engagement is not just the job of HR but of every manager from the top of the organization to the front lines. Because almost no one in any leadership position receives any training in engagement, it’s no surprise that engagement hovers at record lows almost worldwide.
Managers Matter
According to Gallup's workplace research, managers have an outsized influence on engagement because they shape employees' day-to-day experience through communication, coaching, accountability, and support. Gallup's findings have remained remarkably consistent over time, reinforcing the importance of frontline leadership in creating productive and committed workplaces. Yet the persistence of low engagement raises an obvious question: if organizations know managers matter so much, why haven't engagement levels improved accordingly?
Recent reporting from SHRM points to one possible answer. In an analysis of manager capability gaps, SHRM notes that many organizations continue to struggle with inconsistent communication, ineffective feedback practices, and inadequate manager preparation. While engagement may be an organizational priority, many managers simply are not equipped with the tools, systems, or training necessary to create engaged teams on a consistent basis.
The Problem: Engagement Is Still Treated as a Soft Skill
The deeper issue may be that organizations continue to view engagement as an individual competency rather than as a management discipline. Traditional leadership development often emphasizes communication skills, emotional intelligence, coaching, conflict resolution, and motivation. These are valuable capabilities, but they are frequently taught as stand-alone, ad hoc skills rather than as components of an integrated management process.
This stands in contrast to how organizations approach quality management. When manufacturers embraced Total Quality Management, inspired by the work of W. Edwards Deming, quality ceased being viewed as the responsibility of the quality manager and became a systematic process involving leadership, measurement, communication, training, feedback, continuous improvement, and accountability.
The same logic may apply to engagement. If engagement is left largely to the personality, instincts, or interpersonal style of individual managers, results will inevitably vary. If engagement is treated as a management system, however, organizations can create more consistent outcomes across departments, locations, and leadership teams.
What Deming, Drucker, and Peters Would Likely Recognize 
Management thinker Peter Drucker frequently emphasized that people perform best when they understand the purpose of their work and how it contributes to broader organizational goals. Similarly, Tom Peters' work on excellence highlighted the importance of communication, recognition, employee involvement, and leadership visibility as drivers of organizational performance. Both perspectives point toward engagement as a systemic practice rather than a collection of isolated managerial behaviors.
Viewed through that lens, engagement requires much more than motivation. It requires managers to consistently:
- Connect employees to organizational purpose, values, and goals.
- Clarify expectations and measures of success.
- Conduct regular one-on-one discussions focused on opportunities and obstacles.
- Listen to employee concerns and follow up on commitments.
- Ensure job design supports contribution, autonomy, and growth.
- Provide appropriate training and development.
- Maintain effective communication channels.
- Recognize achievement and express appreciation.
- Use feedback and measurement to drive continuous improvement.
Engagement Is a System, Not a Program
The consequences of failing to manage engagement systematically can be significant. Gallup estimates that disengaged employees cost the global economy trillions of dollars annually in lost productivity. Meanwhile, organizations continue to report high levels of voluntary turnover, manager burnout, and employee dissatisfaction despite increased investments in leadership development and employee experience programs.
This may explain why leadership training alone has not solved the engagement challenge. Organizations often train managers to be better communicators, coaches, or motivators without providing a structured framework for systematically engaging employees. As a result, engagement efforts often become ad hoc, inconsistent, and dependent upon the capabilities of individual leaders.
The research increasingly suggests that organizations may need to make the same transition they once made with quality management—moving from viewing engagement as a desirable leadership trait to viewing it as a disciplined business process.
The Missing Management Discipline
If managers truly influence most engagement outcomes, as Gallup's research suggests, then engagement cannot remain an optional soft skill. It must become a core management responsibility supported by systems, processes, measurement, training, and accountability.
Until organizations embrace that shift, they are likely to continue investing in engagement while struggling to achieve it. The challenge may not be whether managers matter. The challenge may be whether organizations have provided managers with a proven system for engaging people in the first place.
For all the attention given to leadership development, employee experience, and workplace culture, the lesson from quality management may be the most relevant: sustainable results rarely come from isolated initiatives. They come from systems. Until employee engagement is managed with the same discipline applied to quality, safety, and customer experience, organizations may continue to find themselves confronting the same disappointing engagement numbers year after year.
Enterprise Engagement Alliance Services
Celebrating our 17th year, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance helps organizations enhance performance through:1. Information and marketing opportunities on stakeholder management and total rewards:
- ESM Weekly on stakeholder management since 2009. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
- RRN Weekly on total rewards since 1996. Click here to subscribe; click here for media kit.
- EEA YouTube channel on enterprise engagement, human capital, and total rewards since 2020
Management Academy to enhance future equity value for your organization.3. Books on implementation: Enterprise Engagement for CEOs and Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap.
4. Advisory services and research: Strategic guidance, learning and certification on stakeholder management, measurement, metrics, and corporate sustainability reporting.
5. Permission-based targeted business development to identify and build relationships with the people most likely to buy.
Contact: Bruce Bolger at TheICEE.org; 914-591-7600, ext. 230.
