LEADERSHIP

The Era of 20% Engagement: Five Areas Leaders Must Review Every Week

According to Gallup's 2026 report, global employee engagement has plummeted to 20% and manager engagement to 22%, with the leadership tier driving the decline. DDI data shows that 71% of leaders report increased stress, and trust in direct supervisors has sharply dropped from 46% in 2022 to 29% in 2024, making trust a new management target. McKinsey findings indicate middle managers spend less than 25% of their time on people management, pointing to bureaucracy as a structural cause consuming leaders' time. In AI transformation, the target for leaders to manage is not the technology itself, but the adoption environment, with active manager support emerging as a top variable determining implementation success. A leader's review areas consist of five categories: oneself, people, trust, work structure, and AI, with the essence of management being not control, but the repetition of regular reviews.