EV-0052
Two thirds of employees are not engaged, and the manager is the variable
Gallup (2026). Global Indicator - Employee Engagement; "Managers Account for 70% of Variance in Employee Engagement" · Source
What this entitles us to say
As of May 2026, 31% of US employees are engaged at work and 17% are actively disengaged. Gallup separately reports that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team-level engagement.
What it found
- 31% of US employees are engaged, as of May 2026. 17% are actively disengaged. The remainder, slightly over half, are in the middle - present but not engaged. - Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team-level engagement, per Gallup's own research.
The first edition said "only about one-third of employees are engaged," and that is still exactly right twelve years later, which is itself worth noticing. This did not drift. It has been roughly a third the whole time.
Why it matters here
This is the evidence under chapter 1's third point, that the leader is the largest single influence on the people being led. The first edition already made the argument correctly - the instinct is to blame the employee, and the evidence points at the manager.
The 70% figure is a substantial upgrade on the book's original phrasing, which was that a manager "has the most impact." That was true but vague. A number this size makes the reader stop, which is what the point needs at that moment in the chapter.
The stability of the one-third figure across twelve years is a second, quieter argument: this is not a passing condition of one economy or one generation. It is what leadership has been producing for as long as anyone has measured it.
The limits
The engagement figure is verified to Gallup's own published indicator page and is exact. The 70% variance figure is Gallup proprietary research reported in their business journal rather than a peer-reviewed study, and the underlying dataset is not public - it is strong enough to cite with attribution to Gallup, and not strong enough to present as settled science. It is a variance decomposition, which means it describes how much of the difference between teams tracks with the manager. It does not by itself establish causation, and it should not be paraphrased into "managers cause 70% of engagement."
What we do not say
"Managers cause 70% of employee engagement." That is a variance decomposition being misread as a causal share.