The biggest lie continues: The impact of leaders v.s. managers

Something we hear time and again is, “People don’t quit companies; they quit managers.” And it is human nature to assume something is true after hearing it repeatedly. That human tendency always piques our interest.

Busting myths is a hobby for us at Culture Amp. In the last couple years we’ve shared data showing that no, engagement does not rebound quickly after a layoff, no, gen z managers are not terrible at communication, and we set the record straight on the relationship between work style and employee experience. So we were curious, does Culture Amp’s data back up this oft-repeated line? Or is there some myth within it?

To find out, we first looked at employee survey comments.

It’s true that employees love talking about their manager

From July 2023 to July 2024, the most common topic was about their manager, with almost 4.7 million comments. And 44% of those comments were negative.

So when it comes to what employees are talking about, it is their manager. On the face of it, this seems to support the idea that employees leave because of their manager. But is what employees talk about most related to whether they stay at or leave an organization? People also talk about the weather often, is that the most important thing in their life? To see the relationship, we need to look at another source of data - like their intention to stay.

Development/career opportunities, leadership, and company confidence drives commitment

Next, we looked at the questions most correlated with employee responses to “I see myself still working at the company in 2 years’ time,” which we know from our research is most predictive of actual attrition. We analyzed the responses of over 3 million employees who responded to surveys from over 4700 companies from July 2023 - July 2024.

It appears the most important things when it comes to someone seeing themselves staying at the company are development/career opportunities, leadership, and company confidence. Where does their manager land? Out of 113 potential drivers, the top-ranking manager question is 64th. For the statistics nerds out there, the correlation coefficient (r) for the top 10 questions range from .71 to .58 while for the manager questions the range is from .38 to .24.

The data tells us that employees prioritize their careers and are more likely to stay at a company they believe will succeed, as it signals greater opportunities for growth. And employees see company success as being impacted by the leadership of the organization than their direct manager. But you might be questioning what’s the interaction between the two? Is great leadership diminished if you have a poor manager? Or can a great manager make up for the fact of poor leadership?

Great leadership buffers the impact of a poor manager but not the other way around

To answer these questions we looked at global data from over 3 million employees from over 4700 companies from November 2023 to November 2024. We looked at employee responses to the Manager and Leadership factors, which each included 4 questions. If the responses at the factor level were in the top 25% the manager or leadership were categorized as ‘great’ and if they were in the bottom 25% they were categorized as ‘poor.’ We then looked at how employees responded to the other survey questions.

Unsurprisingly, those with the combination of a poor manager and poor leadership had the worst employee experience, and those that won the jackpot with a great manager and great leadership had the best experience. But the other combinations were curious.

Across the board, employees working in a company with great leaders had a better experience regardless of their manager's effectiveness. In fact, employees who had a great manager despite poor leaders had an experience closer to employees with a poor manager and leaders than those with great leaders but a poor manager. This tells us that while a great manager matters, great leadership is what ultimately changes the employee experience.

Across all of the Engagement, DEI, and Wellbeing questions (over 100!) that we analyzed, there was only one question where having a great manager was more important than having great leaders: “My job performance is evaluated fairly.” An inverse result makes perfect sense here. Because the manager is the one writing an employee’s performance review, they would have more of an impact on the employee's perception of fairness in the performance process.

The impact of leaders has only become more important over the last 4 years

So has this always been the case? Or perhaps when this idea was popularized, it was true, and it isn’t anymore?

While we don’t have data all the way back to 1999, we can compare it to 4 years ago (November 2019 - November 2020). We chose this time frame because we saw a big improvement in the perception of leaders in 2020 as leaders rose to the occasion to help their companies and employees navigate intense disruption. However, since then we’ve seen a linear decline back to pre-pandemic levels. So, have those declines changed the impact of leaders?

The data shows no. The employee experience under a poor manager with great leaders has remained relatively stable. However, the experience under a great manager and poor leaders has declined for every engagement question, resulting in a larger gap between the two groups in 2024. This growing gap could suggest that employee expectations of leaders are rising within an unstable macroeconomic environment.

Often, when an organization is struggling, one of the first steps is finding new leaders to try to weather the storm. So, an obvious question is, what is the impact of leader change versus manager change?

Manager change does impact the employee experience, slightly more when it’s an external hire.

Next, we looked at 1.7 million employees who had a manager change in the last two years. We compared their survey responses immediately prior to the change to the survey following to see how they changed. Unsurprisingly, we found employees' commitment does decline when they have to get to know a new manager, and it has a slightly larger impact if the new manager is an external hire. This is also true for the other key drivers of commitment.

But again, leader change has a larger impact on an employee’s commitment and subsequent turnover

So, how does this compare to a change in senior leadership? We identified over 13,000 new senior (VP+) leaders and looked at the impact on their reporting line. Again, we see leadership change has a larger impact on change in commitment. However, the impact of whether the leader was an external or internal hire is not as clear-cut. For example, if the leader was an internal hire, the declines in leadership confidence are slightly larger, possibly because employees do not yet see their colleagues at that next level.

As a final step, we compared attrition within teams that had a manager/leader change to those within the same company that did not experience a change (since companies have very different baseline rates of turnover). We compared three time periods following a new manager/leader: 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months.

Given the proximity to one’s manager, many would assume they would have a larger impact on subsequent turnover, but the opposite was true. Both a new manager and a new leader resulted in an increase in turnover. However, a new manager created a steady increase in turnover, while a new leader created an abrupt increase that dissipated. But even one year later, the turnover from leader change is higher than those who experienced manager change. An important caveat is some of this turnover could be involuntary due to a leader restructuring their team, however, since the difference is larger across all time periods, it’s unlikely all of the turnover is due to involuntary exits.

We need to support and equip leaders to meet employee’s needs

From mounds of data, I think we can consider this myth truly busted. While it’s understandable that folks have believed managers are the main reason for exiting for so long given that employees are often talking about their managers, the data points somewhere else – to leaders.

The data shows that questions about leaders are more correlated to commitment, that having a great leader can make up for a poor manager (but not the other way around), and that leader changes result in larger declines in commitment and increases in actual turnover than manager change.

Given the evidence that leaders are, indeed, the answer, how do we support them?

• In surveys, ask employees about leadership. Not all companies add questions in their engagement surveys about leadership. But this is a huge missed opportunity. In 2024, we saw fewer companies asking about employee confidence in leaders, even though it emerged as the #1 top driver of engagement. Companies who aren’t asking their employees about leaders wont have data to understand leadership impact, which also
• Give them the data. Leaders can’t address what they don’t know is happening. Share data that show how their actions directly impact employee experience, engagement, and retention – it’s a powerful motivator. When leaders see the numbers, they’re more likely to take ownership and make meaningful changes for their teams.
• Offer tailored training and development. What employees need from leaders shifts over time, and expectations have been increasing. Offering training that helps leaders attune their skills to evolutions in the workplace may be just what leaders are seeking. The right programs can turn good leaders into great ones and set them up for long-term success.
• Tools to scale development. Leaders need resources that make growth manageable, not overwhelming. Think coaching platforms, easy-to-use analytics dashboards, or mentorship opportunities that support their development without piling more on their plate.
• Elevate the voice of women leaders. Women leaders seem to be more attuned to the employee experience. Make it a priority to hear what they have to say—they can help uncover challenges and opportunities others might miss.

About this replication study:

The research behind this article is a replication of a study we did at Culture Amp in 2017. We’ve kept the original version available as a celebration of how far we’ve come and to show that science is always evolving. If you’re curious about where we started, you can check out the original research here.