What Great Managers Do Differently: 25 Research-Backed Habits of the Best Bosses

Your manager may affect your health, your pay and your next career move more than almost anyone else at work. That is not a slogan. Economists have measured it in output per worker. Epidemiologists have measured it in heart attacks. Survey researchers have measured it in millions of engagement scores. The finding keeps coming back: the person you report to is one of the biggest levers on how well you work and how long you stay.

The good news is that great managers are not born with a mysterious gift. They do specific, learnable things, and they do them consistently. We reviewed nearly 80 peer-reviewed studies, meta-analyses, field experiments and major workplace surveys to identify the 25 habits that most clearly separate the best managers from the rest. Each habit comes with the evidence, an APA citation you can check, and three practical steps you can start using with your team this week, whether you run a warehouse shift, a fleet of drivers, a control room or an office.

The short version: Managers are a measurable multiplier. The best ones make expectations clear, give feedback about the work rather than the person, hold regular one-on-ones, treat people fairly, make it safe to speak up, coach instead of command and care about people's lives and careers. None of these habits needs a big budget. All of them can be learned.

Key takeaways

• A great boss is worth an extra worker. Replacing a bottom-10% boss with a top-10% boss raised a team's output by more than adding one worker to a nine-person team (Lazear et al., 2015).
• Managers drive engagement, and their own is slipping. Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores (Harter & Adkins, 2015), and global manager engagement fell from 30% to 27% in 2024 (Gallup, 2025).
• Leadership shows up in heart health. Among Swedish men who had worked in the same place for four years, each one-standard-deviation improvement in rated leadership was linked to about 39% lower risk of ischaemic heart disease (Nyberg et al., 2009).
• Badly aimed feedback backfires. In a meta-analysis of 607 effect sizes, more than one-third of feedback interventions actually made performance worse (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996).
• Regular conversations pay off. Employees whose managers hold regular meetings with them are almost three times as likely to be engaged (Harter & Adkins, 2015).
• Most managers are untrained, yet training works. Only 44% of the world's managers say they have received management training (Gallup, 2025), while leadership interventions give a 66% probability of a positive outcome against 50% by chance (Avolio et al., 2009).

How to read this guide: The 25 habits are grouped into four parts. Part 1 shows why manager habits are measurable. Parts 2 to 4 cover clarity and feedback, trust and care, and coaching and growth. Citations in brackets lead to the full reference list at the bottom. Study results describe averages in particular samples, so your team may differ. This article is general information, not medical, legal or HR advice. For health, safety-critical or employment-law questions, speak to a qualified professional in your jurisdiction.

Part 1: The manager effect, and why your habits are measurable

Habit 1: They treat management as a productivity tool, not a reward for past work

Many organisations still treat management as a title you earn for being good at something else. The data says management is itself a powerful driver of output. Lazear et al. (2015) tracked worker productivity at a large technology-based services firm and found that swapping a boss in the bottom 10% for one in the top 10% raised team output by more than adding a tenth worker to a nine-person team. A large part of the gain persisted after workers moved to a different boss, which the authors read as evidence that good bosses teach skills that last. Across more than 700 manufacturing firms in four countries, better management practices were strongly associated with higher productivity and profitability (Bloom & Van Reenen, 2007). When researchers randomly gave large Indian textile plants free help adopting basic management practices, productivity rose by 17% in the first year (Bloom et al., 2013).

What great managers do:

• Block time every week for "people work" such as coaching, planning and removing obstacles, and protect it like a customer meeting.
• Write down the three management routines that would most improve your team's output, such as shift handovers, daily priorities or quality checks, and run them consistently.
• When you promote someone into a supervisor role, judge them on how they help others perform, not just on their own past numbers.

Habit 2: They measure themselves by who stays

People rarely leave good managers lightly. In a study of 7,272 U.S. adults, one in two said they had left a job at some point to get away from their manager (Harter & Adkins, 2015). Hoffman and Tadelis (2021) used personnel data from a large high-tech firm and found that managers' survey-measured people management skills had a strong negative relationship with employee turnover, and research designs using new hires and manager moves supported a causal reading. Google's Project Oxygen found that in 2008 teams with high-scoring managers had less turnover, and retention was more strongly related to manager quality than to seniority, performance, tenure or promotions (Garvin, 2013). Employees who feel supported by their supervisor come to believe the whole organisation values them, and that belief predicts whether they stay (Eisenberger et al., 2002).

What great managers do:

• Track regretted resignations and transfer requests on your team as a personal performance measure, not just an HR statistic.
• Hold "stay conversations" with your best people before they start looking: ask what keeps them, and what might make them leave.
• When someone resigns, ask a neutral colleague to find out whether your behaviour played a part, and act on the answer.

Habit 3: They treat their team's health as part of the job

Leadership is an occupational health factor. In the Swedish WOLF study, subordinates rated the leadership of 3,122 male employees' managers on consideration, clarity of goals and roles, information and feedback, handling change and encouraging participation. Over a mean follow-up of 9.7 years, better leadership predicted lower risk of ischaemic heart disease, and the link grew stronger the longer people had worked under it, reaching a hazard ratio of 0.61 per standard deviation at four years (Nyberg et al., 2009). A systematic review of 27 high-quality studies reported that good leadership was linked to better job well-being, with moderate evidence of about 27% less sick leave and 46% fewer disability pensions (Kuoppala et al., 2008). A broad meta-analysis found transformational, relations-oriented and task-oriented leadership positively associated with followers' mental health, while destructive leadership was strongly negative (Montano et al., 2017; Schyns & Schilling, 2013). Supervisor behaviour predicted employees' psychological well-being even after other personal and workplace factors were taken into account (Gilbreath & Benson, 2004).

What great managers do:

• Watch for early warning signs such as rising absence, irritability, mistakes or overtime, and ask privately how the person is doing.
• Remove one unnecessary stressor from your team each month, such as a pointless report, an unclear rota or a recurring late change.
• Know your organisation's employee assistance and occupational health options, and mention them routinely so asking for help feels normal.

Habit 4: They protect their own engagement and energy first

Disengaged managers create disengaged teams. Gallup's 2025 global report found that the share of engaged employees worldwide fell from 23% to 21% in 2024, a drop Gallup estimates cost the world economy US$438 billion in lost productivity, and it attributes the decline mainly to managers (Gallup, 2025). Manager engagement fell from 30% to 27%, with drops of five points for managers under 35 and seven points for female managers, while individual contributors stayed flat at 18%. A review of three decades of research found that leaders' own stress and well-being were associated with their employees' stress and well-being (Skakon et al., 2010). Support matters at every level: employees who strongly agreed they felt supported by their manager were about 70% less likely to experience burnout regularly (Wigert & Agrawal, 2018).

What great managers do:

• Ask your own manager for the same things your team needs from you: clear priorities, regular one-on-ones and honest feedback.
• Build a short recovery routine into your week, such as a proper lunch break or a walk after a tough shift, so your stress does not leak into the team.
• Find a peer group of other supervisors to compare notes with, so you are not carrying every hard decision alone.

Habit 5: They learn the craft on purpose

Google once doubted that managers mattered at all. Its Project Oxygen research identified eight behaviours of its best managers: being a good coach, empowering the team without micromanaging, showing interest in team members' success and well-being, being productive and results-oriented, communicating and listening, helping with career development, having a clear vision and strategy, and having key technical skills (Garvin, 2013). After Google built feedback and training around them, median favourability scores rose from 83% to 88% between 2010 and 2012, and the lowest-scoring managers improved the most. Yet Gallup (2025) reports that only 44% of managers worldwide say they have received management training, and that trained managers are half as likely to be actively disengaged. Training works: across about 200 experimental and quasi-experimental studies, leadership interventions gave a 66% probability of a positive outcome against 50% by chance (Avolio et al., 2009). In a randomised field experiment with 20 bank branch managers, one day of transformational leadership training plus four monthly boosters improved staff commitment and two measures of branch financial performance (Barling et al., 1996).

What great managers do:

• Ask your team for anonymous upward feedback twice a year on a short list of specific behaviours, then share what you will change.
• Choose development that includes practice and feedback spread over several sessions, which a large meta-analysis linked to more effective programmes (Lacerenza et al., 2017).
• Treat management skill as a health and safety investment as well as a performance one, as leading occupational health researchers recommend (Kelloway & Barling, 2010).

Habit 6: They combine structure with consideration

The oldest finding in leadership research is still one of the most useful. A meta-analysis of more than 300 correlations found that "consideration" (showing concern and respect for people) had an overall corrected correlation of .48 with leadership outcomes, while "initiating structure" (organising roles, tasks and standards) had .29 (Judge et al., 2004). Consideration mattered more for satisfaction, motivation and leader effectiveness; structure mattered slightly more for group and organisational performance. A second meta-analysis found transformational leadership had an overall validity of .44, but clearly rewarding people for meeting agreed goals (contingent reward) was close behind at .39, and hands-off, laissez-faire leadership was strongly negative at -.37 (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). For individual task performance, contingent reward even added explanatory power beyond transformational leadership (Wang et al., 2011).

What great managers do:

• Check each week that you have done both: set clear priorities and standards, and shown genuine personal interest in each person.
• Never "leave people to it" as a management style. Being absent when decisions are needed is one of the most damaging things a leader can do.
• Link recognition and rewards explicitly to agreed goals, so people can see the connection between effort and outcome.

Part 2: Clarity, goals, feedback and progress

Habit 7: They make expectations impossible to misunderstand

People cannot hit a target they cannot see. A meta-analysis found role ambiguity, meaning uncertainty about what your job requires, was negatively related to job performance (r = -.21), while role conflict had a negligible link (Tubre & Collins, 2000). Clarity also appears in the health research: "provision of clarity in goals and role expectations" was one of the leadership behaviours linked to lower heart disease risk in the WOLF study (Nyberg et al., 2009). Google's best managers were described as having a clear vision and strategy for the team (Garvin, 2013).

What great managers do:

• For every role on your team, write the top three outcomes that define success, and check that the person describes them the same way.
• When priorities change, say so explicitly and explain what drops off the list.
• End every handover or briefing by asking someone to repeat back the key priorities in their own words.

Habit 8: They set specific, stretching goals together

Thirty-five years of goal-setting research shows that specific, difficult goals lead to higher performance than easy goals or vague instructions to "do your best" (Locke & Latham, 2002). Goals work best when people are committed to them, receive feedback on progress and have the ability to reach them; complex tasks also need sound strategies, not just harder targets. Goals give people a clear standard to judge their own work against and focus attention on what matters.

What great managers do:

• Turn "do your best" into a number and a date, such as "pick accuracy of 99.5% by the end of the quarter."
• Agree goals with people rather than just announcing them, and ask what support they need to reach them.
• For complex or new tasks, set learning goals first (for example, "test three ways to cut dwell time") before setting hard output goals.

Habit 9: They aim feedback at the task, never the person

Feedback is not automatically good. Kluger and DeNisi (1996) meta-analysed 607 effect sizes covering 23,663 observations. Feedback improved performance on average (d = .41), but more than one-third of feedback interventions actually decreased performance. Their explanation: feedback becomes less effective as it pulls attention away from the task and towards the self. "You missed the cut-off because the paperwork was incomplete" helps. "You are careless" hurts.

What great managers do:

• Describe the specific behaviour, its effect and the standard: "The load was released without the seal check, which risks a rejected delivery. The standard is a check every time."
• Pair feedback with a concrete next step, so attention moves to how to improve rather than how bad the person feels.
• Avoid comparing people with colleagues in feedback. Compare their work with the goal and with their own past performance.

Habit 10: They link rewards and recognition clearly to results

Rewards work best when people can see exactly what earns them. In a field experiment, money administered through a systematic behavioural management approach raised performance by 37%, against 11% for routine pay for performance; social recognition raised it by 24% and performance feedback by 20% (Stajkovic & Luthans, 2001). A meta-analysis of 72 behavioural management studies found an average performance improvement of 16%, with money, feedback and social recognition each effective and strongest in combination (Stajkovic & Luthans, 2003). The lesson is not to pay more, but to make the link between effort and reward visible and fair.

What great managers do:

• Explain exactly which behaviours and results earn bonuses, overtime opportunities or preferred shifts.
• Combine the three cheapest levers: clear feedback, specific praise and whatever tangible rewards you control.
• Check that the same results earn the same rewards across people and shifts, and fix any gaps you find.

Habit 11: They make progress visible every day

Amabile and Kramer (2011) analysed nearly 12,000 daily diary entries from 238 people in 26 project teams across seven companies. Of all the events that shaped people's emotions, motivation and perceptions at work, making progress in meaningful work was the most powerful, even when the progress was small. Setbacks hurt more than progress helped. Earlier analysis of the same kind of diary data showed that day-to-day leader behaviour, such as supporting or undermining people's work, shaped how supported and creative they felt (Amabile et al., 2004).

What great managers do:

• Start shift briefings with yesterday's wins, such as orders shipped on time or a problem solved, before discussing problems.
• Remove the small obstacles that block progress, such as missing tools, slow approvals or unclear instructions, as a daily priority.
• Break long projects into visible milestones so people can see themselves moving forward.

Habit 12: They connect the work to the people it helps

Knowing who benefits from your work is a powerful motivator. In a field experiment with university fundraising callers, those who spent a few minutes with a student who had benefited from the funds raised spent 142% more time on the phone and raised 171% more money a month later; control groups showed no change (Grant et al., 2007). Further field experiments found that helping workers see the positive impact of their jobs on others raised their performance (Grant, 2008). In logistics, that might mean a patient who got medicine on time or a shop that opened with full shelves.

What great managers do:

• Share real stories and feedback from customers or end users with your team regularly.
• Invite an internal or external customer to talk to the team about what the team's work makes possible.
• When you set a target, explain who it serves, not just what the number is.

Habit 13: They make safety a conversation they start

In safety-critical operations, the frontline supervisor is the safety system people actually see. Zohar (2000) found that work groups' shared perceptions of how supervisors prioritised safety predicted minor accidents in manufacturing. When Zohar (2002) trained supervisors to monitor and reward safe behaviour more often, safety-oriented interactions rose, with significant and lasting improvements in minor-injury rates, earplug use and safety climate. A meta-analysis found that active transactional leadership supports compliance with rules, while transformational leadership encourages employees to participate in safety, and that the combination works best (Clarke, 2013). Safety-specific transformational leadership has been linked to a better safety climate and fewer injuries (Barling et al., 2002), and a randomised training study improved employees' perceptions of their leaders' safety leadership and of safety climate (Mullen & Kelloway, 2009).

What great managers do:

• Talk about safety in every briefing and walk-round, not only after an incident.
• Notice and thank safe behaviour as often as you correct unsafe behaviour.
• Never reward speed in ways that quietly punish people for stopping a job they think is unsafe.

Part 3: Trust, fairness and care

Habit 14: They hold one-on-ones that belong to the employee

Regular one-to-one time is one of the simplest habits with the biggest payoff. Gallup's study of U.S. managers found that employees whose managers hold regular meetings with them are almost three times as likely to be engaged, that consistent communication, in person, by phone or electronically, is linked to higher engagement, and that employees value managers who show interest in their lives outside work (Harter & Adkins, 2015). Organisational psychologist Steven Rogelberg's research-based book on one-on-ones argues that these meetings are a core part of the manager's job, not an add-on, and that they should focus on the employee's needs and agenda (Rogelberg, 2024).

What great managers do:

• Schedule a recurring one-on-one with every direct report, weekly or fortnightly, and avoid cancelling it. For shift workers, 15 minutes at the start of a shift works.
• Let the employee bring the agenda first, then add your items: "What's on your mind? What's getting in your way? How can I help?"
• Write down what you agreed and follow up next time, so the meeting builds trust rather than becoming a status report.

Habit 15: They build a strong relationship with every team member, not just their favourites

Leaders tend to form close, trusting relationships with some people and transactional ones with others. A meta-analysis of 247 studies found that relationship quality between leader and employee (leader–member exchange, or LMX) is shaped most by the leader's own behaviour and perceptions (Dulebohn et al., 2012). Higher-quality relationships are associated with better performance ratings, satisfaction, commitment and role clarity, and lower intentions to quit (Gerstner & Day, 1997). They are also linked to more citizenship behaviour, the voluntary extra effort that keeps teams running (Ilies et al., 2007). Because the leader drives the relationship, the leader can widen the "in-group".

What great managers do:

• List your team members and honestly mark which relationships are close and which are distant. Then invest deliberately in the distant ones.
• Rotate stretch assignments, information and visibility so they do not always go to the same people.
• Pay special attention to night shifts, remote workers and drivers on the road, who see you least.

Habit 16: They recognise specific effort, soon and sincerely

Recognition is cheap, fast and powerful. In a controlled field experiment with more than 300 workers on a data-entry task, unexpected public recognition after two hours raised later performance substantially, and much of the increase came from workers who did not receive recognition themselves (Bradler et al., 2016). A purely symbolic congratulatory card for the best performer raised performance by about 12% (Kosfeld & Neckermann, 2011). In a joint Gallup and Workhuman study tracking nearly 3,500 employees from 2022 to 2024, well-recognised employees were 45% less likely to have changed organisations two years later (Yi, 2024).

What great managers do:

• Make recognition specific: name what the person did and why it mattered, such as "You spotted the mislabelled pallet before it shipped and saved us a return."
• Recognise close to the moment, not just at annual reviews.
• Keep a simple log so recognition is spread fairly across the team, including quieter people and those in support roles.

Habit 17: They are fair, and they explain their decisions

People judge not only outcomes but how decisions are made and explained. A meta-analysis of 25 years of research linked fair procedures, respectful treatment and honest explanations to satisfaction, commitment, trust, performance and less withdrawal (Colquitt et al., 2001). In a classic field study, theft rose at plants where pay was cut, and rose much less where managers explained the cut thoroughly and with sincere regret (Greenberg, 1990). Fairness is a health issue too: among 6,442 British civil servants, those who reported high justice at work had a 35% lower risk of coronary heart disease (Kivimäki et al., 2005), and hospital staff who perceived low justice took 1.2 to 1.9 times more sick leave (Elovainio et al., 2002). Employees who are often treated unfairly at work are 2.3 times more likely to experience high burnout (Wigert & Agrawal, 2018).

What great managers do:

• Explain the "why" behind rota changes, overtime allocation and other decisions people care about, even when the answer is unpopular.
• Use consistent, visible rules for things like holiday requests and shift swaps, and apply them to everyone.
• Give people a chance to be heard before a decision that affects them, and tell them how their input was used.

Habit 18: They do what they say they will do

Trust is built in small promises. Mayer et al. (1995) proposed that we trust people when we see ability, benevolence and integrity in them. Simons (2002) described "behavioural integrity", the perceived match between a manager's words and deeds, including keeping promises and living espoused values, as central to credibility. A meta-analysis found trust in one's direct leader is related to job performance, citizenship behaviour, job satisfaction and commitment, and to lower intention to quit (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002).

What great managers do:

• Make fewer promises and keep all of them. If you cannot deliver, say so early and explain why.
• Keep a running list of what you have committed to each person and review it before each one-on-one.
• Follow the rules you set for others, from safety gear to break times.

Habit 19: They make it safe to speak up

Teams cannot fix problems that nobody mentions. Edmondson (1999) studied 51 work teams in a manufacturing company and found that team psychological safety, a shared belief that it is safe to take interpersonal risks, was associated with learning behaviour, which in turn predicted team performance; team leader coaching helped shape it. A meta-analysis of 136 samples covering more than 22,000 people and nearly 5,000 groups confirmed that psychological safety is linked to task performance and citizenship behaviour beyond related factors (Frazier et al., 2017). Detert and Burris (2007) found that managers' openness to input was consistently related to employees speaking up, working through psychological safety.

What great managers do:

• Thank people every time they raise a problem or near miss, especially when it is bad news or about your own decision.
• Ask specific questions, such as "What is one thing that could go wrong on this shift?", rather than "Any questions?"
• Admit your own mistakes openly, so others know it is safe to admit theirs.

Habit 20: They listen more than they talk

Listening is an underrated management skill. A major review linked listening at work to better job performance, leadership, trust, knowledge, attitudes and well-being, and argued that it benefits both speaker and listener (Kluger & Itzchakov, 2022). In four experiments, people who received high-quality, non-judgemental listening became less anxious and less defensive, and held less extreme, more balanced views (Itzchakov et al., 2017). Employees who felt their supervisor really listened reported less emotional exhaustion and lower intention to quit (Lloyd et al., 2015).

What great managers do:

• In your next one-on-one, aim to speak for less than a third of the time.
• Summarise what you heard before you respond: "So the main issue is the late trailer arrivals, not the pick rate. Have I got that right?"
• Put your phone away and face the person. Distraction tells people their concerns do not matter.

Habit 21: They support the whole person, including life outside work

People bring their lives to work, especially shift workers juggling childcare, caring duties and long hours. Family-supportive supervisor behaviour includes emotional support, practical help, role modelling and creative problem-solving on work–family issues, and it predicts lower work–family conflict, higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intentions over and above general supervisor support (Hammer et al., 2009). Training supervisors in these behaviours benefited employees who had high work–family conflict (Hammer et al., 2011). In a group-randomised trial at a large company, an initiative that trained supervisors to support employees' personal lives and gave staff more control over their schedules improved work–family conflict and schedule control without increasing hours or perceived job demands (Kelly et al., 2014).

What great managers do:

• Ask about the constraints people face outside work and look for flexible solutions within operational limits, such as shift swaps or adjusted start times.
• Role-model boundaries: take your own leave and avoid messaging people on their days off unless it is an emergency.
• Treat requests for flexibility as a problem to solve together, not a favour to grant or refuse.

Part 4: Coach, empower and grow people

Habit 22: They coach more than they command

"Is a good coach" was the first behaviour on Google's list of what its best managers do (Garvin, 2013). In a study of warehouse workers and their supervisors at 18 U.S. distribution centres, workers experienced low levels of supervisory coaching, yet coaching was positively associated with their job satisfaction and with supervisors' ratings of their performance (Ellinger et al., 2003, 2005). Meta-analyses of workplace coaching find positive effects on performance and skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes and self-regulation (Theeboom et al., 2014). Interestingly, coaching by internal coaches had stronger effects than external coaching (Jones et al., 2016), although that analysis excluded manager-to-employee coaching.

What great managers do:

• When someone brings you a problem, ask "What have you tried?" and "What would you do next?" before offering your answer.
• Spend a few minutes each shift on the floor, observing and giving real-time tips rather than only reviewing reports.
• Agree one development goal with each person and check in on it at every one-on-one.

Habit 23: They give away control

Great managers do not micromanage. A meta-analysis of 105 samples found that empowering leadership, which shares power, encourages autonomy and builds confidence, is positively related to performance, citizenship behaviour and creativity, partly through trust in the leader and feelings of empowerment (Lee et al., 2018). Leaders who support autonomy help satisfy people's basic needs and are associated with more autonomous motivation, well-being and performance (Slemp et al., 2018). Self-determination theory identifies three basic psychological needs at work, competence, autonomy and relatedness, whose satisfaction promotes high-quality performance and wellness (Deci et al., 2017; Gagné & Deci, 2005). Kuvaas et al. (2017) found that intrinsic motivation was positively related to a range of employee outcomes, while extrinsic motivation was unrelated or negatively related.

What great managers do:

• Agree on the outcome and the non-negotiables, such as safety, quality and deadline, then let people decide how to get there.
• Delegate at least one decision a month that you would normally make yourself.
• Explain the reasons behind rules and give choices where you can, so people feel ownership rather than control.

Habit 24: They serve first, and stay humble

Servant leadership puts the growth and needs of team members first (Eva et al., 2019). When Hoch et al. (2018) compared newer "positive" leadership styles with transformational leadership, authentic and ethical leadership added little, but servant leadership showed more promise as a distinct approach. A meta-analysis of 130 studies found servant leadership predicted outcomes beyond transformational, authentic and ethical leadership, partly through trust, fair procedures and better leader–employee relationships (Lee et al., 2020). In a study of 961 employees in 71 restaurants, a serving culture built by servant leaders was linked to better restaurant performance, job performance and customer service and lower intentions to quit (Liden et al., 2014). Humility matters too: leaders' expressed humility was linked to higher employee engagement and retention (Owens et al., 2013).

What great managers do:

• Ask your team regularly, "What can I do to make your job easier?", and act on at least one answer.
• Give credit publicly to the team and take responsibility for failures yourself.
• Admit what you do not know, and ask experienced team members to teach you.

Habit 25: They grow people, even if those people outgrow the team

Helping with career development was one of Google's eight manager behaviours, and it was one of the areas where the weakest managers improved most after feedback (Garvin, 2013). Kraimer et al. (2011) found that support for development was linked to better performance and lower turnover when employees saw career opportunities in the organisation, but to higher turnover when they did not. Employees who believe their organisation values their contribution and cares about their well-being show more commitment and performance and less withdrawal (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). Development matters for the business too: engaged employees perform better on both core tasks and extra-role behaviour (Christian et al., 2011), and engagement at business-unit level is linked to productivity, profit, customer satisfaction and lower turnover (Harter et al., 2002, 2010).

What great managers do:

• Ask each person once a year where they want to be in two to three years, and agree one step that moves them closer.
• Share internal job openings and recommend your strong people for them, even if you lose them.
• Pair development with real opportunity, such as cross-training, acting-up roles or certifications that lead somewhere.

Your 10-point action plan

1. Schedule one-on-ones. Put a recurring 15–30 minute slot in the diary with every direct report this week.
2. Write down success. For each role, define the top three outcomes and check that each person agrees.
3. Fix your feedback. Make every piece of feedback specific, task-focused and linked to a next step.
4. Recognise daily. Give at least one specific, sincere piece of recognition every working day.
5. Start the safety conversation. Raise safety at every briefing and thank people who report near misses.
6. Explain decisions. When you make a call that affects people, tell them why and how their input was used.
7. Listen first. In every conversation, summarise what you heard before you answer.
8. Delegate one decision. Each month, hand over one decision you would normally make.
9. Talk careers. Agree one development step with every team member this quarter.
10. Get feedback on yourself. Ask your team for anonymous upward feedback twice a year and share what you will change.

Ready to build these habits with your own team? Take our free Leadership Flex Check to see how you lead under pressure, then explore BLTI courses in frontline leadership and management, as well as BLTI's logistics, transportation and operations credentials.

Frequently asked questions

What do great managers do differently?

The best managers combine clear structure with genuine care. They set clear expectations, give task-focused feedback, hold regular one-on-ones, recognise good work, treat people fairly, make it safe to speak up, coach rather than command and support people's development. Google's Project Oxygen identified eight similar behaviours among its best managers (Garvin, 2013).

How much do managers affect employee engagement?

A lot. Gallup estimates that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores (Harter & Adkins, 2015), and it attributes the 2024 fall in global engagement mainly to declining manager engagement (Gallup, 2025).

Can a bad manager affect your health?

Research suggests it can. Better-rated leadership has been linked to lower risk of heart disease (Nyberg et al., 2009), and perceived fairness at work to lower coronary risk (Kivimäki et al., 2005). Destructive leadership is strongly associated with poorer mental health (Montano et al., 2017). These are associations from observational studies, so they do not prove that one manager causes illness in any individual case.

How often should managers hold one-on-one meetings?

There is no single rule, but regularity matters. Employees whose managers hold regular meetings with them are almost three times as likely to be engaged (Harter & Adkins, 2015). Weekly or fortnightly meetings work for most teams, with short check-ins for shift-based roles.

Can management skills be learned?

Yes. Across about 200 experimental studies, leadership interventions gave a 66% chance of a positive outcome against 50% by chance (Avolio et al., 2009). Programmes work better when they include practice and feedback over several sessions (Lacerenza et al., 2017).

About this research

This guide was compiled by the Better Leaders Training Institute (BLTI) research team. We checked every source below for authors, year, title, journal or publisher, volume, issue, pages and DOI or stable link, using publisher records and the Crossref database. We prioritised peer-reviewed studies, meta-analyses, randomised field experiments and large reputable surveys. Where a figure comes from an industry survey or a research firm's own analysis, such as Gallup's reports, we say so in the text. Findings describe averages in specific samples, and many are correlational; your organisation may differ. This article is general information, not medical, legal or HR advice.

References

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Videos

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