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Are You Disengaged at Work? Your Manager Might Be to Blame

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Is your manager is always coming down on you and making you feel like you can’t do anything right? If so, you probably don’t like your job very much — and you’re definitely not alone and probably not to blame. New research points the finger at disengaged managers as one of the main culprits for unhappy, unproductive employees. It’s costing corporations billions of dollars and professionals their career dreams. Here’s what you need to know.

35 percent of managers are engaged at their job

(Photo Credit: Steve Koukoulas/Flickr)

Gallup’s report State of the American Manager: Analytics and Advice for Leaders states that only 35 percent of managers are engaged at work. Fifty-one percent of managers are “disengaged,” meaning they care little, if at all, about their job and company, and the other 14 percent are “actively disengaged” and are costing the “U.S. economy $319 billion to $398 billion annually,” according to the study. What does this mean for the employees reporting to managers who have checked out?

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As you probably know, a great portion of a manager’s job is to engage and lead employees and ensure that the company’s objectives are being met on a daily basis. However, how is a manager expecting to carry out these job functions successfully, if at all, if he himself is disengaged and unmotivated? Employees look to their bosses for inspiration and guidance, therefore, when a boss is part of the 65 percent group that has checked out, this, Gallup says, creates a “cascade effect” that negatively affects employee engagement, performance, and mood.

You’re probably wondering how an engaged manager impacts his employees. Well, according to another Gallup study, “Employees who are supervised by highly engaged managers are 59% more likely to be engaged than those supervised by actively disengaged managers.”

Therefore, it’s important to be able to recognize a disengaged manager before his negativity trickles down and jeopardizes your career’s potential. As Stacy Shamberger, Executive Executive Vice President Skyline Group Intl, writes in her article on LinkedIn, “I believe employees are the future of every organization and we have the data to prove that employees leave managers/leaders not companies.”

To help you out, here are some valuable resources to help you sniff out a no-good, career-ruining boss in an interview, help you determine whether you have bad boss currently, and how to deal with an inadequate boss effectively. Learning how to safeguard yourself from the perils of a disengaged boss could mean the difference between having a prosperous career and a dead-end career. The choice is yours.

Tell Us What You Think

Do you work for a disengaged manager? How does his/her lack of engagement impact your career? Share your experience with our community on Twitter.

Leah Arnold-Smeets
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Businness love bullies

After reading this forum, all I can say those business loosing billions of dollars, they deserve all of that loss and more, any employee that DARE report the incompetent bimbo BOSS to a higher level can expect absolute retaliation in every respect, not only from the bimbo your reporting, be it he/she is a very incompetent know it all expert of mostly blah blah blah and BS er, but from those they know in the company who maybe long time… Read more »

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