'Commitment to stay' hinges more on leaders than managers

Article by HR Daily (05 February 2025)

Even when an employee has a good manager, they report low commitment to stay with an organisation if they regard its leadership as poor, research indicates.

Culture Amp analysed data points from more than 400,000 employees and 2,000 companies, finding when employees have a good manager and a great leader, they report a high commitment to stay: 94%.

(Specifically, Culture Amp analysed data from employees who gave a positive response to the question, "I see myself still working at the company in two years' time", looking at how they ranked leaders and managers against four measures of quality.)

Commitment to stay is lower, but not dramatically so (80%), if a person has a poor manager and a good leader, the data shows.

But even with a good manager, if the leader is poor, employee commitment to stay drops to just 35%.

Culture Amp APAC GM Andy Brockhoff attributes this to the "overall direction" that leaders have, as opposed to managers.

An employee might have a manager who, day-in-day-out, makes things "a little bit challenging", he tells HR Daily.

"But at the same time, if we think about the commitment to stay, and people valuing, much more, the vision that the leader is putting forward – the cadences, the operations, the culture – that really has a huge impact on the employee's commitment."

Given that an employee might only report to a manager for a year or two, the commitment ratings make sense, Brockhoff says. "[Some] people go through managers multiple times, but they stay with the company [for] the vision, the culture... all those things leaders are trying to drive."

The worst outcome of all occurs when an employee has a poor manager and a poor leader, in which case commitment to stay drops to 19%.

If a manager is stuck with a flawed strategy, and systemic issues beyond their control, their ability to "buffer" employees is limited, Brockhoff notes.

"If you've got a poor leader... your boss in front of you can only do so much."

Culture Amp also found leaders have a much greater impact than managers on attrition levels, and that turnover often spikes in the six months after a leadership transition. Brockhoff sets out what this means for HR in a further article – Premium members can click through to read it.

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