The No. 1 Reason Why Employees Quit Their Managers

Get weekly leadership insights and strategies straight to your inbox here.

* * *

I have interviewed hundreds of top leaders, leadership experts, scholars, Wall Street Journal and New York Times best-selling authors, to get to the bottom of the real reason people?quit their jobs.

The answer hasn't changed over the years. You can throw in pandemics, lockdowns, Great Resignations and inflations. The same reason always floats to the top.

Why Your Employees Are Quitting

The?real?reason people quit their jobs is because the managers charged with ensuring their employees' success don't care enough to meet their needs as valued employees and human beings.

And this is consistent with leading research by Gallup. In?one study of 7,272 U.S. adults, Gallup found that 50 percent of employees left their job "to get away from their manager to improve their overall life at some point in their career."

Gallup CEO Jim Clifton summarized this unfortunate phenomenon in a succinct sentence when he said this in the?State of the American Workplace report:

"The single biggest decision you make in your job--bigger than all the rest--is who you name manager. When you name the wrong person manager, nothing fixes that bad decision. Not compensation, not benefits--nothing."

Put Your Employees Ahead of your Customers

Managers, for the most part, still operate in traditional top-down hierarchies. Unfortunately, they have it all backwards.

Management guru Ken Blanchard, whom I've interviewed on the Love in Action podcast twice, is famous for teaching the concept of an "upside down pyramid," where leaders serve the employees, who are closest to the customer experience, first.?Blanchard says:

"Great leaders realize that their No. 1 customer is their people. If they take care of their people, train them, and empower them, those people will become fully engaged and gung-ho about what they do. In turn, they will reach out and take care of their second most important customer--the people who buy their products or services--and turn them into raving fans."

The premise for the success behind great company cultures comes down to an unwavering focus on treating employees well, so they'll in turn treat their customers well. If you ignore the first part of the equation, you'll never get to the second.

But first, employees need to feel like they belong, and trust, not fear, their managers. In Simon Sinek's bestseller,?Leaders Eat Last, he talks about the concept of the "circle of safety." The world is filled with danger and uncertainty, things that are trying to frustrate us and reduce our opportunity for success. The only variables,?says Sinek in this TED Talk, are the conditions inside the organization. This is where leadership matters, because it's the leader who sets the tone to make sure there's trust and cooperation, and that employees' needs are being met.

Sinek brings the point home:

"When a leader makes the choice to put the safety and lives of the people inside the organization first, to sacrifice their comforts and sacrifice the tangible results, so that the people remain and feel safe and feel like they belong, remarkable things happen."

Stripped down to its basic and most practical form, leadership has always been and will always be about meeting the needs of people and developing them to their fullest potential.

When employees don't get the tools, training, time, development, clear expectations, vision, or resources they need to do their jobs well, they experience low morale. They stop caring and they stop trying, unfortunately, early on in the game.

When the rubber meets the road, the question that will define your leadership success will always come down to, "Are you meeting the needs of your people?"

Your turn: Do you agree? Leave a comment and let's learn from each other.

More Content You May Enjoy

• Jeff Bezos Said Living a Successful and Meaningful Life Boils Down to 1 Simple Thing (Originally published on my Inc. column, no paywall)
• 8 Signs to Quickly Point Out Someone With Bad Leadership Skills (Originally published on my Inc. column, no paywall)
• The Green Room (premium subscriber chats with global leadership experts)
• Dr. Jonathan Fisher: A Cardiologist’s Guide to Cultivating Lasting Joy, Mastering Our Stress, and Living with More Vitality (Full Podcast Episode in Video & Audio)

About Marcel Schwantes

Marcel Schwantes is a speaker, executive leadership coach, author, and podcast host with a worldwide following. Join here for updates, exclusive coaching videos, leadership strategies, and more.