Contents
When engagement is local, not strategic
The hidden risks of hero managers
Elevating all your managers to hero level
Start with an honest check-in of how you’re listening
Take the Employee Listening Barometer
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 engagement is local, not strategic
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.
The hidden risks of hero managers
When engagement relies on hero managers:
- Successes aren’t captured or scaled.
- Resources aren’t allocated equitably.
- Strong managers can burn out due to lack of support.
- Poor managers continue unchallenged.
- Action becomes reactive, not systemic.
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.
Elevating all your managers to hero level
The solution is not to dampen strong managers, it’s to elevate everyone else. Our advice to these clients is:
- Start by capturing what your best managers are doing. Their practices are organisational assets. Use their impact to build the business case for stronger strategic investment.
- Engage your hero managers in shaping engagement strategy as they already understand what employees need.
- Then build infrastructure that supports manager effectiveness such as consistent action-planning processes, ensuring leadership is owned (beyond HR) and holding regular reviews of progress.
This will help you move from having scattered pockets of local excellence into a more structured and consistent approach.
Start with an honest check-in of how you’re listening
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.
For a quick check on how well you’re listening, take the free WorkBuzz Employee Listening Barometer: