Management is Broken. Here's What We're Getting Wrong

Let's face it: the way we manage people is fundamentally flawed.

It's not just about bad managers (though those certainly exist). It's about a broken system of management built for a 9-5, in-person, hierarchical world that doesn’t exist anymore.

The workforce has changed. Worker expectations have changed. But the tools we give managers to keep their teams engaged, motivated, and growing are stuck in the past. 

Think I'm being dramatic? 

According to Gallup, employee engagement has hit its lowest point in a decade. More than two out of every three managers are themselves disengaged. That means the very people best positioned to shape culture and performance are burned out, unsupported, and out of sync with what their teams need—and what their companies demand. 

Manager efficacy accounts for 70% of variance in employee engagement. When managers have the right tools, they become force multipliers of performance. When they don’t, they become the crack that leads to an implosion of epic proportions.

The evidence is clear: management as a system is failing both the managers and the people they're supposed to lead. It’s time to rebuild with today’s workforce, and modern tools and practices, in mind.

The Four Pillars of Broken Management

If today’s managers are struggling, it’s not because they’re lazy or indifferent—it’s because the tools and systems they’re forced to work with are fundamentally broken.

Modern teams need real-time feedback, meaningful recognition, and ongoing coaching to perform at their best. But managers are stuck with outdated rituals, fractured visibility, and an impossible to-do list no human could manage. 

Leadership has the power to effect swift change if they choose. But they don’t. Here’s where their current management playbook is failing:

1. Performance Reviews: A Yearly Exercise in Futility

The traditional annual performance review might be the most universally despised workplace ritual. Both managers and employees dread these conversations—and for good reason.

These reviews often rely on scattered recollections rather than comprehensive data and are riddled with recency bias. Important wins from early in the year are forgotten. Ongoing challenges get overlooked. And the feedback comes far too late to be actionable.

As a result, employees feel judged rather than supported, and managers feel burdened with an administrative task instead of empowered to develop their people. A study by Deloitte found that 58% of executives believe their current performance management approach drives neither employee engagement nor high performance. And 98% of CHROs do not believe that performance management actually works in the first place. 

If performance management were a drug, it wouldn’t be cleared by the FDA as safe to use on humans.

It’s not surprising that traditional approaches to performance management are ineffective.  Conservative estimates for the genesis of the practice date back to World War I, when the army used this system to determine whether to discharge or transfer battlefield soldiers. Some sources trace those beginnings back to the Wei Dynasty (that’s circa 230 AD). 

It’s mind boggling we haven’t killed this broken practice off completely yet.

When recognition and feedback only happen once or twice a year, we miss countless opportunities to coach, guide, and grow our people when it will actually impact outcomes.

2. One-on-Ones: Inconsistent and Ineffective

In theory, regular one-on-ones should bridge the gap between formal reviews and provide ongoing support. In practice, they're often the first meetings to get canceled when schedules get tight.

That’s a shame, because effective, timely check-ins between a manager and their team members have been found to have the biggest impact on improving employee engagement and experience, closely followed only by recognition and rewards.

When one-on-ones do happen, they frequently lack structure. Without clear agendas that balance work discussions with personal connection, these meetings devolve into status updates or, worse, firefighting sessions that never touch on growth, feedback, or connection.

According to research from CMI, only 1 in 4 workers would describe their manager as highly effective. Of the workers in the majority, half plan to leave within a year, and only a third feel motivated enough to do a good job.

There’s no shortcut to effective management. It takes dedicated time, attention, and the right frameworks to turn one-on-ones into moments that matter. Unfortunately, most organizations haven’t set managers up to deliver that.

3. Employee Recognition: Stuck in the 80s

If the words “employee recognition” make you think of plaques, pins, or a dusty ‘Employee of the Month’ photo wall, you’re not alone. Too many organizations treat recognition like a one-off ceremony, not an ongoing practice.

But today’s employees expect something different. They want timely, specific, and personal recognition tied to the values and goals that matter. They want to be seen and appreciated for their real contributions, not just once a year at the holiday party. They want to take an active role in celebrating the people they work with, to add their own shoutouts, and to share the moment.

The problem? Most managers don’t have modern tools to deliver that kind of recognition. Instead, they’re left with outdated systems that feel disconnected, impersonal, or performative.

When recognition is an afterthought, motivation drops, culture erodes, and one of the simplest tools to drive thriving, high-performing teams sits unused.

4. Impossible Workloads: Setting Managers Up to Fail

Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of our broken management system is the sheer volume of work we expect managers to handle. 

Today's managers are drowning under:

• ‍Cloudy visibility. While research suggests the ideal number of direct reports is five to seven, many managers today oversee teams of 10, 15, even 20 people. Additional direct reports exponentially increase the complexity of team dynamics and the time needed for effective oversight and development. Add in remote or hybrid work, and it’s easy to see how overall visibility hinders a manager’s ability to show up for their teams. ‍
• Dual responsibilities. Most managers aren't just managers—they're also expected to be individual contributors. They're caught in a perpetual balancing act between their own deliverables and supporting their team members. When pressed for time, guess which responsibility gets sacrificed first? People management work.‍
• Administrative overload. From budget tracking to HR paperwork to endless reporting requirements, managers spend hours each week on administrative tasks that add little value to their teams or organizations. One study found managers spend a whopping eight hours weekly—a full day—on administrative tasks alone.‍
• Insufficient training and resources. Despite the complexity of the role, organizations invest shockingly little in developing management capabilities. Remember that 82% of managers are "accidental"—promoted for technical prowess rather than leadership skill—yet only 12% receive substantial management training.

The math simply doesn't work. When a manager has 12 direct reports, each deserving at least a weekly one-hour one-on-one, that's already 12 hours of their week spoken for. Add in individual contributor work, cross-functional meetings, administrative tasks, and the constant stream of unexpected issues, and it becomes physically impossible to manage effectively.

It's not that managers don't want to be better—it's that we've created a role that no human could possibly fulfill without the right support systems, reasonable workloads, and appropriate resources.

The Perfect Storm: Why Management is More Broken Than Ever

The cracks in our management systems aren't new—but the last few years have blown them wide open.

Today’s managers are navigating a perfect storm of complexity, pressure, and change. The expectations are higher, the support is lower, and the old playbook no longer works. 

Our 2025 State of Recognition Report explores this in detail. Here’s what it found is making the job harder than ever:

• ‍The shift to remote and hybrid work has fundamentally changed how teams connect and collaborate. Flexibility is now non-negotiable. But managing distributed teams requires new tools and habits—especially when it comes to staying connected, aligned, and aware of how people are doing. Most managers were never trained to lead this way, and legacy systems aren’t built for it.‍
• Economic uncertainty has created pressure to do more with less. Managers are being asked to maintain productivity and morale—with fewer resources, smaller teams, and little help. It’s emotional labor on top of operational execution, all while navigating uncertainty themselves.‍
• The multi-generational workforce brings diverse expectations and needs. Gen Z now makes up 27% of the workforce. This generation demands more from their leaders: open communication, psychological safety, real growth opportunities. They’re not afraid to walk away from outdated models of management—and they’re reshaping the employer-employee relationship in the process.‍
• Increasing spans of control have stretched managers too thin. As organizations have flattened hierarchies, the number of direct reports per manager has grown beyond sustainable levels, often reaching double digits. That’s not management—it’s triage.

It's no wonder Harvard Business Review called management "the hardest job in business." We've put managers at the center of engagement, performance, and culture—and then left them without the tools, training, or time to succeed.

No wonder they’re burning out. No wonder their teams are disengaged. No wonder it feels like the whole system is broken.

We've thrown the very people who could address our engagement crisis into the deep end without a life preserver.

The Way Forward: Reimagining Management Systems & Investing in Manager Effectiveness

The good news? We can fix this. 

We know what good management looks like—and it starts with rethinking the systems we expect managers to operate in.

If we want thriving teams and high performance, we need to make four key shifts:

1. From Annual Reviews to Continuous Performance Enablement

Organizations need to move away from point-in-time evaluations toward continuous feedback loops. This means:

• Creating systems for managers to capture observations and feedback throughout the year
• Encouraging regular check-ins focused on relationship and trust-building, celebrating success, career growth along with evaluation of work and projects that have been completed
• Using technology to capture a more complete picture of employee contributions
• Making recognition and coaching a regular practice, not a periodic event

When feedback and recognition become ongoing rather than occasional, performance management transforms from an administrative burden into a developmental tool.

2. From Status Updates to Meaningful Connections

One-on-ones need to evolve from transactional check-ins to relationship-building conversations. They should be the most valuable hour of the week—for both the manager and the employee.

To make them count, they should:

• Have clear, consistent agendas that balance work and personal connection
• Never be canceled (seriously, nothing communicates value like protected time)
• Focus on growth, goals, celebrations, and honest feedback
• Connect individual work to broader company goals and values

When done right, these conversations build trust, psychological safety, transparency, and mutual respect—the foundations of high-performing teams.

3. From Old-School Rewards to Recognition That Works

Too many organizations treat employee recognition as a perk—or worse, a box to check. But when done right, recognition is one of the most powerful tools a manager has to optimize for high performance.

Here’s what modern recognition should look like:

• Timely: Given as close to the moment as possible
• Specific: Tied to impact, not just effort
• Aligned: Connected to company values, goals, or key behaviors
• Accessible: Built into daily workflows, not buried in HR platforms

When recognition is frequent and meaningful, it boosts morale, reinforces performance, and builds stronger manager-employee relationships.

4. From Overload to Sustainable Management

Organizations need to recognize that effective management requires time, focus, and reasonable workloads. 

In other words: we need to stop setting managers up to fail—and start designing roles they can actually succeed in.

• Reevaluate span of control norms and reduce the number of direct reports per manager
• Clarify priorities between management responsibilities and individual contributor work
• Provide administrative support or systems that automate routine management tasks
• Invest in management development and training, especially for first-time managers
• Implement tools that reduce the burden of recurring management activities

When managers have sustainable workloads, clear priorities, and the right tools in place, they can focus on what truly matters: developing their people and driving results through their teams.

The Bottom Line: Manager Effectiveness is the Key to Building High Performing, Thriving Teams

The management systems we subject our leaders to matter.

We’ve spent decades acting like great management is all about individual skill. Find the right people, give them the right training, and everything will improve.

But the data tells a different story. Even the most skilled managers struggle in broken systems. And even average managers can excel when supported by the right processes, tools, and organizational priorities.

It's time to stop placing the entire burden of engagement and performance on individual managers. Instead, let's build management systems that actually work—ones that create visibility, foster meaningful connections, and enable continuous growth.

Because when management systems work, both managers and their teams thrive.

Wondering where to start? Download the Manager Playbook to build a better systems for managers and teams alike.