Engagement fell to 21%. Leadership philosophy is not a soft topic
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 reports global engagement down to 21% and manager engagement down to 27%, costing an estimated $438 billion in lost productivity. The fix starts with how leaders decide.
Vivara® Team
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 report brought an unwelcome result: global employee engagement fell from 23% to 21% in 2024 — only the second decline in more than a decade. The drop was driven largely by managers, whose engagement fell from 30% to 27%.
Gallup estimates that the fall cost the world economy around $438 billion in lost productivity, and that fully engaging the global workforce could add some $9.6 trillion — about 9% of global GDP.
Why managers matter most
Managers translate strategy into daily work. When they are disengaged — overloaded, unclear about priorities, or asked to enforce decisions they don’t understand — their teams follow. Gallup has long found that around 70% of the variance in team engagement is attributable to the manager.
Philosophy as an operating system
Many organisations treat values as wall posters. The ones that perform treat them as a decision framework: a small set of questions every significant choice must pass. At Why® Group, that framework is Vivara®:
- Vision — does this decision move us in a clear long-term direction, beyond quarterly pressure?
- Value — does it create measurable value for customers, the business and the environment?
- Wisdom — is it ethical, sustainable and fair to the people affected?
When managers can explain why a decision was made in those terms, they stop being messengers and start being leaders. That is where engagement begins.
Three questions for leadership teams
- Can every manager state the three criteria your company uses to make big decisions?
- When did a decision last get rejected because it failed one of them?
- How do you develop managers — not only promote them?
Explore the Vivara® framework.
Sources
Written by
Vivara® Team
