And why top-performing CEOs and CHROs are shifting their lens
“Our engagement scores are high. But our attrition is still rising.”
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
Many CEOs and CHROs are discovering a painful truth—knowing how your people feel is not the same as knowing how your managers lead. Engagement surveys offer valuable signals. But signals without context can be misleading, and often leave critical questions unanswered.
The Limit of Engagement Scores
Let’s be clear—engagement surveys aren’t the problem. In fact, they’ve long been a cornerstone of HR strategy. They help you track employee sentiment, flag red zones, and benchmark against industry standards.
But here’s what they don’t tell you:
- Why employees feel disengaged
- How their managers are contributing to (or solving) the issue
- What behaviors are driving performance, trust, or attrition
- Which managers are silently eroding culture—or building it
That’s the blind spot.
From Feelings to Facts: Why Manager Effectiveness is a Smarter Metric
At Great Manager Institute®, we’ve spent over a decade studying 1,00,000+ managers across 1,000+ organizations. Across sectors and leadership styles, one truth holds:
How managers behave—day in and day out—is the biggest driver of organizational outcomes.
And yet, very few companies measure manager effectiveness as a dedicated, structured process.
Instead, they rely on fragmented inputs:
- Feedback from engagement surveys
- One-off 360s
- Sporadic L&D data
The result? An incomplete picture. And you can’t manage what you can’t measure.
What Manager Effectiveness Actually Measures
Manager Effectiveness is not a mood metric. It’s a behavioral mirror.
When done right, a Manager Effectiveness assessment captures:
✔️ Real-time feedback from direct reports
✔️ Tangible leadership behaviors across dimensions like trust-building, recognition, coaching, and conflict handling
✔️ Alignment of manager actions with team performance, retention, and well-being
✔️ Leadership potential for succession planning
It’s not about how well-liked your managers are.
It’s about how effectively they lead.
Engagement vs. Effectiveness: What’s the Difference?
| Dimension | Engagement Surveys | Manager Effectiveness |
| Focus | Employee sentiment | Manager behaviors |
| Depth | Surface-level mood | Root-level action |
| Outcome Linkage | Weak correlation to business outcomes | Strong linkage to attrition, productivity, engagement |
| Use Case | Broad org-wide pulse | Targeted leadership decisions |
| Recognition Path | None or indirect | Direct—through GMTWW™ |
| Sustainability | Snapshots | Continuous behavior change |
Why CEOs Should Care
Your strategy is only as strong as your execution. And execution lives and dies at the manager level.
Manager Effectiveness is not an HR metric—it’s a business metric. It impacts:
- Revenue per employee
- Speed of execution
- Culture alignment during scale
- Trust in leadership
Why CHROs Should Prioritize It
As a CHRO, your credibility hinges on translating HR initiatives into real outcomes.
Imagine being able to:
- Show your board which managers are shaping culture and which need intervention
- Design L&D journeys backed by real-time leadership gaps
- Recognize top managers using data, not politics
- Retain high-performing teams by elevating the right leaders
That’s what a Manager Effectiveness Profile enables.
So, What Should You Do Next?
If you’re relying only on engagement surveys, it’s time to ask:
Are you truly seeing what’s happening at the manager level?
Manager Effectiveness isn’t a replacement for engagement. It’s a layer deeper—and far more actionable.
Final Word
The future of leadership measurement is not just about how people feel.
It’s about how they’re being led.
If you’re a CEO or CHRO who believes leadership is your strongest lever—this is your moment to get sharper, deeper insights.
👋 Curious to see what this looks like in your organization?
Click here and fill up the form, and we’ll walk you through the Manager Effectiveness Profile in under 20 minutes.
