Manager effectiveness is one of the strongest levers on employee well-being: highly effective managers correlate with about 65% higher job enjoyment and dramatically lower burnout, yet only about a quarter of managers are rated highly effective.
Segal highlights that manager quality is one of the biggest predictors of burnout and enjoyment, but the supply of highly effective managers is scarce, making improving management the single biggest lever for retention. ✦ AI generated
Noam Segal · Lenny's Podcast · 2026-07-12 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 72:42
If you have an extremely effective manager, for example, you're reporting around 65% higher job enjoyment and dramatically lower burnout. The problem is is the the supply. Only about 25% of the sample rate their manager as highly effective and 36% of the sample rated their managers as ineffective.
verbatim transcript · starts at 72:42
72:42who your manager is probably matters more than most other characteristics of your role. And we found this very explicitly last year and this year again um manager effectiveness. So we basically asked people how effective is your manager? How would you rate your manager? And what you can see here is that the more effective your manager is, the less burnt out you feel and the more you enjoy your job. And this is a
73:14massive massive effect that we're seeing. So if you have an extremely effective manager, for example, you're reporting around 65% higher job enjoyment and dramatically lower burnout. The problem is is the the supply. um only about 25% of the sample rate their manager as highly effective and 36% of the sample rated their managers as ineffective which by the way is a very small change from from last year. So we're seeing managers be
73:58rated not so well and at the same time we're seeing that when managers are effective which is clearly uh not often enough the impact that has on people's enjoyment burnout and other aspects as well is incredible. That's wild. like like I think we're adding new uh insight into the world here just finding this I like I've never never seen this before just how impactful a manager is that we always
74:28hear anecdotes we always hear like you know people only leave they don't leave jobs they leave their manager but this is wild just how much that impacts you and clearly one of the takeaways might be go if you're having a bad time find a better manager as you said easier said than done >> yeah but there's a couple of things here I want to I want to also note before we