13 statistics that reveal how bad managers affect good employees

The signs of a bad manager at work

Bad managers cause employees to leave – it’s as simple as that.

Learn to spot the signs of common poor management practices creeping in, so you can act quickly.

• Bad listener: Managers who refuse to listen miss out on valuable ideas and concerns from their team, leading to frustration and disconnection.
• Feedback avoidance: Avoiding feedback deprives employees of a voice (one of the key factors in a happy workplace), and often leads to issues being swept under the rug.
• Lack of accountability: When managers don’t hold themselves or their team members accountable, it leads to a lack of trust.
• Lack of empathy: Managers who lack empathy struggle to understand their team’s needs and emotions, and this only causes strain on workplace culture.
• Micromanagement: We all know how destructive micromanagement can be. Constantly overseeing every detail demotivates employees, hinders creativity, and stifles productivity.

Gallup’s most profound finding – ever.

• 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager.

In the words of Gallup themselves, this is their most profound finding ever.

In simpler terms, what that means is that managers have incredibly high influence over how engaged a team feels at work – 70% of team engagement can be directly linked to a manager’s actions and behaviour.

It’s a game-changing perspective when you realise how much power is given to managers.

Poor management in the UK – are we experiencing a leadership crisis?

Organisations (big and small) seem to struggle significantly with preparing and supporting managers to lead their teams in a healthy and successful way.

In fact, some experts even suggest the UK is experiencing a leadership crisis.

• 33% of employees in the UK have experienced a ‘toxic’ manager in the last 5 years. (Corndel, 2024)
• 41% of workers in the UK have left a job due to dissatisfaction with poor management. (Corndel, 2024)
• 82% of new managers in the UK are what have been labelled ‘accidental’ managers, meaning they have no formal training or leadership qualifications. (CMI, 2023)

The cost of bad management and impact on business

If ever you needed a more concrete reason to invest more in your managers, it is this. Bad management affects businesses bottom lines – in the tens of billions.

• In the UK the annual cost of poor management for employers is £84 billion. (OECD, 2019).

This incredible loss builds up through staff turnover, absenteeism, poor engagement, lower productivity and more.

• 50% of employees who are unhappy with their manager will leave their jobs within the next year (CMI, 2023).
• Employees with ineffective managers are unproductive for 10% – 52% of their day. (Training Industry, 2020).
• 37% of businesses have seen an increase in stress-related absenteeism, with the top two factors being excess work and poor management (CIPD, 2019).

How bad managers affect good employees

In May 2023, the CIPD conducted an extensive report that found a direct link between poor managers and a negative affect on employee mental health, job satisfaction and performance at work.

The results showed that the lowest scoring managers contributed to:

• 50% of employees experiencing negative impacts on their mental health
• 39% of employees experiencing excessive pressure at work
• 70% of employees experiencing low job satisfaction

While the report showed the shocking reality of how bad managers can very negatively affect employees’ experience, it also showed that on the other side of the coin – managers who treat people fairly and provide effective feedback and support, will have positive impact on their teams.

• 88% of employees with good managers had high job satisfaction.
• 74% of employees with good managers said they would willingly go the extra mile and volunteer to do work outside of their usual job.

How to handle bad managers

It is our belief at Stribe that employee voice is the greatest tool when it comes to positively moving a workplace forward – and that applies to supporting and training managers, too.

Employee feedback and surveys might seem like an unlikely tool to help your managers become better leaders.

But through leadership effectiveness surveys and other channels of feedback, workplaces gain insights into the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of their employees, allowing them to make informed decisions and strengthen manager and team relationships.

See more of Stribe.

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