Every organisation is fortunate to have them 😊 The managers who genuinely care, who seek feedback, who hold team conversations, who act quickly on issues, who create high engagement despite pressure. But not all your managers have this level of capability and this is an area where employee listening can fall into another of the common traps we see – the hero manager problem.
In this post, we’re going to look at what happens when employee engagement relies on hero managers rather than being led from the top.
When you have a hero manager problem, engagement thrives in pockets as strong managers create great team experiences independent of any broader organisational direction. They run local initiatives, they hold meaningful conversations and the take action that makes a difference for their teams.
Meanwhile, other teams drift. Elsewhere, there are no clearly defined engagement goals, employee listening data is rarely used in decision making and even at the highest level, leadership may view engagement as HR’s responsibility rather than as business priority. The result is wild inconsistency in engagement across teams as employees across the business have radically different experiences despite being in the same organisation.
While strong local leadership is better than uniform disengagement, it’s unsustainable, inefficient and inequitable. To put it bluntly, your best managers are compensating for organisational gaps through their individual heroics which is not sustainable and comes at a cost.
When engagement relies on hero managers:
Without strategic alignment, even strong manager-led action stays tactical and focused on solving immediate team issues rather than addressing root causes. That means HR teams end up investing effort but don’t get the full value from employee listening.
The solution is not to dampen strong managers, it’s to elevate everyone else. Our advice to these clients is:
This will help you move from having scattered pockets of local excellence into a more structured and consistent approach.
Before you can move from local manager-led initiatives to a coherent strategy, you need an understanding of how well your current approach is serving employees and their managers.
The WorkBuzz Employee Listening Barometer is a five-minute self-assessment designed by our People Science team to help you understand where you stand across employee listening strategy, leadership, manager capability, employee perception and action-taking.