Managers are increasingly experiencing severe levels of stress on the job. Recent workforce studies suggest that 96% of all workers are experiencing some level of stress due to changes in their operating environments, with nearly 50% of managers reporting they are suffering from severe stress. Understanding that 85% of employees leave their jobs due to conflict with their managers and that an employee's relationship with their manager is the most significant contributor to the lack of engagement (which incidentally only hovers around 27%), it is time to put a premium on manager readiness. 

How are we setting up managers for failure:

• They are selected because they are strong technicians, not managers

• They do not understand even the basics of equitable workload distribution, resource allocation and employee development

• They do not possess key human skills (e.g., emotional intelligence, leadership, team building, strategic thinking) to build connected cultures

• They do not have sufficient decisional authority over production nor risk tolerance for innovation

• They are expected to perform work, rather than manage the production of others

• They are demonized by the leadership narrative

Managers are responsible for command and control of production, and when armed with human skills, organizational autonomy and risk tolerance, and focused on fostering the human potential of their workers, they are able to gain greater insights into production, develop more meaningful work experiences, take risks, innovate and celebrate failure without being victimized by punitive organizational policies. In this way, the manager creates space for their workers to be successful and those workers will naturally exceed production expectations.