The manager gap — a research survey

I'm trying to understand how People teams experience the gap between the support they give managers and what actually shows up in how those managers lead. Your individual answers are anonymous, I'll only ever share findings in aggregate, never attributed to a person or company. And once I've heard from enough people, I'll share what I find directly with everyone who completes this.

- Mick

What best describes your role?

A

People Partner / HRBP

B

Head of People / CPO / VP People

C

Other

When you run manager enablement — workshops, coaching sessions, training — how confident are you that what you taught actually shows up in how managers lead the following week?

A

Very confident — I have clear signals it carries over

B

Somewhat confident — I believe it helps but can't really measure it

C

Not very confident — I know a lot of it doesn't stick

D

Not confident at all — the gap between session and behaviour is a real frustration

How much visibility do you have into how your managers actually lead their teams day-to-day — not just what they report back, but what really happens?

A

Good visibility — I have clear signals through multiple channels

B

Some visibility — I piece it together from various sources but it's incomplete

C

Very little — I mostly find out when something goes wrong

D

None — what happens between a manager and their team is largely invisible to me

E

Other

In your experience, what's the #1 thing managers know they should do but consistently fail to do in practice?

A

Adapt their leadership style to the individual

B

Create genuine psychological safety in team conversations

C

Handle difficult conversations early

D

Follow through on development commitments made in 1:1s

E

Have direct, timely feedback conversations

F

Other

What do you currently do to try to close this gap - to make sure leadership development actually translates into changed behaviour?

If you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing about how your organisation currently develops managers - what would it be?

How does manager enablement feature in your People team's priorities for this year?

A

It's our primary focus

B

It's important but competing with other priorities

C

It's on the radar but not resourced

D

It's not a current priority

E

Other

If a tool could analyse manager 1:1s and deliver coaching to the manager directly — with no visibility to HR — how would you feel about rolling that out?

A

Excited — that's exactly the kind of thing we need

B

Interested but I'd need to understand the privacy implications

C

Cautious — I can see managers resisting this

D

This would be a hard sell in our organisation

E

Other

The manager gap — a research survey

What best describes your role?

When you run manager enablement — workshops, coaching sessions, training — how confident are you that what you taught actually shows up in how managers lead the following week?

How much visibility do you have into how your managers actually lead their teams day-to-day — not just what they report back, but what really happens?

In your experience, what's the #1 thing managers know they should do but consistently fail to do in practice?

What do you currently do to try to close this gap - to make sure leadership development actually translates into changed behaviour?

If you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing about how your organisation currently develops managers - what would it be?

How does manager enablement feature in your People team's priorities for this year?

If a tool could analyse manager 1:1s and deliver coaching to the manager directly — with no visibility to HR — how would you feel about rolling that out?

Want the research findings when they're ready?