Managers Can Have a Huge Positive Influence on Employees—Here’s How to Make the Most of It
Managers Can Have a Huge Positive Influence on Employees—Here’s How to Make the Most of It
Second only to family, employees say that workplace leaders are the most impactful people in their lives.
Photo: Getty Images
Bad managers can drive good employees out. Nearly seven in 10 employees say they would quit a job because of a bad manager, according to a 2024 LinkedIn poll. The opposite may also be true: A recent survey indicates that managers and leaders can have a huge positive influence on employees’ daily lives. For Gallup’s new Global Leadership Report, it asked some 13,000 employed respondents across 52 countries to name the leader who has the most positive influence on their daily life. Nearly a third (31 percent) said a manager or a leader of their organization had the most positive influence on their lives, ranking second after a family member (44 percent). Just 6 percent cited a political leader, and 5 percent said a religious leader.
Among all respondents in the United States, the gap is smaller: Thirty percent reported that a manager or organizational leader had the greatest positive influence in their daily lives, while 34 percent said a family member.
In cultures where people spend a lot of time working, like the U.S., it’s not surprising that managers are so influential, says Taya Cohen, professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon University.
People in the U.S. work an average of 38 hours per week—that’s more time on the clock than 62 percent of other OECD countries. The relationships we form at work have an outsize influence on how we feel and function, says Bobbi Wegner, an organizational psychologist and Harvard University lecturer. “We often forget that work relationships are social relationships, and these are people we’re spending most of our time with.” So how can managers be a positive influence for employees?
Gallup’s research identified what it calls the “four needs of followers,” or expectations that people tend to place on leaders: hope, trust, compassion, and stability. Given their influence, managers are well-positioned to meet these needs, but they’re already overburdened. Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workplace report found that managers are more likely to be stressed, angry, sad, and lonely than their non-manager peers. Providing something like hope to employees can seem like an impossible responsibility to shoulder.
Inspiring hope
Rather than attempting to provide a total sense of hope, trust, compassion, and stability, consider how these things can be affected in a workplace context, says Denise Rousseau, a professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon. For instance, “When I hear hope, I hear ‘compelling future,’” she says. Employees need to know that their relationship with their manager will contribute to their professional future—through skill development and encouragement—whether or not that person is still their boss.
But beware of overpromising. To be truly compelling, hope for the future must be realistic. And when hope is realistic, employees can trust their leaders, Wegner says: “Trust is built over time when your words match your actions.” If a manager commits to something that becomes untenable, they should be honest and tell employees why.
Building compassion and trust
Compassion can feel like a top-down emotion, something one person gives to another, so consider reframing it as empathy, which can place manager and employee on the same level, Wegner explains. This often manifests in the workplace as nonjudgmental understanding. So when an employee and their manager disagree, the manager should strive to understand why they’re at odds. Try an exploratory approach, like “help me understand why you made that decision,” says Wegner.
Rousseau likes to link compassion with trust, thinking of it as taking employees’ interests to heart. For instance, if an employee needs something or suffers a hardship, they can count on their employer to offer some kind of support.
Being a stable influence
Of the four needs employees want to be met, stability may be the most precious commodity in 2025. Many companies are laying off workers and some are freezing hiring. Business leaders are struggling to respond to political tumult, and economists debate the likelihood of a recession. Providing a sense of stability can feel unrealistic.
Though managers cannot control external environments, they can give employees a sense of stability by honestly and consistently sharing information, says Wegner. A manager may not be able to say definitively that employees will have a job in a year’s time, but they can promise to be candid along the way, sharing what they know as soon as they know it. Managers can provide “stability in the relationship, even though the social environment is maybe not so stable,” she says.
Growing the perfect manager
Typically the perfect manager is someone that is promoted from within. That individual that has already proven themselves as being a good self-starter and leader. But sometimes you have to look outside your four walls to hire a manager. If you're considering an outside hire, and that individual works with typical customers, we can help by conducting targeted mystery shops. Targeted shops gives you a true insight of how a potential hire interacts with customers and fellow team members.
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