Organizations are in the throes of monumental change.
Management training and development is typically the first thing eliminated when massive organizational change happens, opting for short-term cost savings at the expense of sustaining a developed, equipped, and engaged management workforce.
Managers are navigating complex workplace situations in this ever-changing environment comprising volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA).
Why It Matters
Middle managers—management positions just below the C-suite and above front-line supervisors—are the glue that holds an organization together. These managers bridge the gap between executives and the general workforce.
Workplace challenges impact their capabilities (and desire) to build the bridge successfully.
According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 Report, managers deal with a myriad of personal and organizational challenges, including:
- Psychological pressure from making difficult decisions
- Managing disputes between employees
- New systems and technologies, including AI tools
- Difficulty in establishing trust with senior leaders
- The expectation to do more with less, operating with significantly understaffed teams and other resources
Dig Deeper
Engaged managers—highly involved in and enthusiastic about their work and workplace—significantly influence their team members’ engagement. In turn, this affects business productivity and performance.
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 Report indicates management engagement dropped from 30% to 27% globally, while young managers (under age 35) dropped by five percentage points and female managers by seven points.
While the U.S. rate of Engaged managers of 34% is slightly higher than the global percentage, the rate of U.S. Engaged employees dropped by one point to 31% while Actively Disengaged employees—those who are unhappy at work and act out their unhappiness—increased by one point to 17%. The rate of Not Engaged employees—quietly quitting, putting time but not energy or passion into their work—remained at 52%.
Research attributes 70% of a team’s engagement to the manager.
As the manager's engagement rate goes, team members follow.
Management Training and Development Matters
Training and developing managers matters and is a differentiator in elevating overall employee engagement.
Only 44% of the world’s managers have received management training. Half as many managers who receive training are actively disengaged compared to those who do not. (Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2025 Report).
Moreover, Gallup found that teaching effective coaching techniques boosts manager performance, and ongoing management development increases manager well-being.
Massive organizational change is not the time to reduce management training and development. Instead, adopting a non-negotiable strategy to equip and empower managers to lead with confidence, courage, and capabilities can mitigate the downturn in morale, productivity, performance, and results during seismic change.
A Viable Management Training and Development Solution
End View Solutions, LLC works with organizations to envision their future state of management readiness and effectiveness, assess the present position, pinpoint the needs gap, and determine strategies to close it, including management training and development.
Our Model. Mentor. Multiply. Leadership℠, a comprehensive, interactive leadership development program, addresses three crucial areas: Self-Leadership, People Leadership, and Strategic Leadership.
The scope of leadership development topics includes, but is not limited to, the following:
- Emotional Intelligence and Purpose
- Leadership and Management
- Team Development and Employee Engagement
- Priority Management and Delegation
- Coaching, Counseling, and Performance Management
- Conflict Management
- Problem Management, Problem Solving, and Decision-Making
- Systems, Processes, and Continuous Improvement
- Change Leadership
- Business Unit Planning
If you would like more details, you can access the Leadership & Career Development Training Directory.
Call to Action
Consider elevating employee engagement via a vital group of stakeholders, middle management.
Middle managers, an often overlooked, crucial group, could hold the key to surviving and thriving through monumental organizational change as they set the tone and tenor for employee engagement.
Gallup’s research indicates that management training and development is an underutilized lever. Why not activate this lever to create win-win-win outcomes?
You don’t have to go it alone. Schedule a complimentary consultation.
Lillian Davenport, SPHR, SHRM – SCP, MGSCC, Principal, End View LeadershipSM
