Many Leaders Say They’d Drop Their Titles to Be More Engaged at Work, Here’s Why

In late 2024 experts predicted that in early 2025, employee engagement would be a key driver for success in a period when many expected rapid business growth. Engagement is an important measure of how “bought in” workers are to the company they’re working for: more engaged workers just go that little bit further, which ultimately contributes to driving up revenues and profits.

But by April a Gallup survey was showing that employee engagement scores had dropped globally, to the point that U.S. and Canadian engagement had declined to levels more typical of Latin America. The study found disaffection was starting at the top, noting that the “primary cause for the global decline in engagement,” was a “drop in managers’ engagement,” and pointing out that “no other worker category experienced as significant a decline in engagement as the world’s managers.” 

Now a new survey adds a fascinating wrinkle, showing that nearly half of leaders (46 percent) would actually quit their top-tier roles if it meant that they would actually feel more engaged at work. In other words, they’d give up their title in order to feel more valued, productive, or perhaps more part of a team. Does this mean the allure of management-grade perks is fading? And what does it mean for your company?

That data, from Norwegian learning platform Kahoot!, is startling. Just 47 percent of UK and U.S. company leaders surveyed said they were “fully engaged,” and this is a dramatic contrast to the views of their teams, with 79 percent of the leaders believing their teams would see them as “energized.” Worse, the report notes that 34 percent of leaders said they felt burned out on a daily basis, or at least several times a week, and 22 percent — over one in five — said they felt “emotionally disconnected” from their teams “often” or “always” during the previous six months, HCAMag reported. This will likely play into the way they interact with their teams, since workers inevitably can pick up on the subtle emotional undercurrents behind managers’ actions, and this could easily demotivate front-line workers.

The study found, somewhat bleakly, that the leading causes of managerial burnout included “emotional exhaustion from trying to motivate disengaged employees,” along with having to cope with “nonstop change” and the persistent old saw, “economic uncertainty.” Mainly middle managers said they had concerns about “feeling invisible or undervalued by executive leadership.” The major culprits behind leadership burnout included “juggling engagement with too many other priorities,” with 48 percent of those surveyed agreeing with this, even as 48 percent highlighted pressures of responding to employee apathy, and 28 percent cited problems with continuously trying to get Gen-Z workers engaged. 

The new survey also found possible causes of this sagging sense of connection, noting that 57 percent of the leaders surveyed hadn’t received “extensive” training on how to reengage disengaged teams, and just 17 percent said their company always backed them up by providing effective team motivation tools.

More interestingly, and offering a potential insight into some of the ill-advised pushes to get workers to return to the office, the study also found one in four leaders said they’re not “confident” about leading hybrid or remote teams, so that many “improvise at a time when alignment mattered most.” This confidence gap is, of course, going to add to leadership stress — particularly as data show that hybrid and remote working models really are here to stay, and can even be more productive under some circumstances. 

As to what would turn things around for leaders, the survey showed 58 percent of leaders looking for more energy, creativity or fun in daily tasks. Meanwhile 52 percent wanted to grow their own skills, resonating with a recent report that showed managers feel simply too busy in day-to-day tasks, such as arranging training for their subordinates, to do their own training or seek mentorship. 

All told, the report paints a picture of sort of workplace spiral. where employee engagement is suffering, leading to stressed-out, overburdened management and leadership who are losing touch with the joy of work. The top-down disaffection then fuels wider employee disengagement, reducing team effectiveness.

What can you take away from this for your company? You may, after all, be feeling in good spirits about your leadership duties, and of the opinion your workers are cheery and as engaged as they can be with their jobs.

Engagement is a somewhat abstract measure of your workplace culture and employees’ emotional states. Thus it’s possible that everything seems to be ticking along happily on the surface, but key managers and even others on your leadership team are quietly “cracking” under stresses they’re not voicing aloud. Savvy leaders would know to seek help if they’re feeling overburdened or disengaged with their job, and also to check in regularly with their managers and workers to see how they’re feeling — under a no-blame banner.