Research Drop in Brief:
- Manager effectiveness is critical to team success, but only 1 in 5 managers report performing key manager behaviors on a consistent basis.
- Consistent 1:1 meetings are the most challenging to regularly prioritize.
- When looking at differences in managerial priorities, we found that C-Level Executives focus more on coaching and mentoring, Directors and VPs dedicate more time to building cohesion, and Managers concentrate more on facilitating high performance.
- Managers need organizational support to be their best, where practices and resources are in place to foster manager engagement, reduce burnout, and support development.
Managers are the backbone of any organization, playing a pivotal role in driving team performance and fostering a positive work environment. Their ability to coach, mentor, and support their direct reports enhances productivity and contributes to employee satisfaction and retention. Employees at organizations with highly effective managers are 2.5x as likely to describe their company as “highly innovative” and 1.6x as likely to be engaged¹. But managers are often stuck between their requirements and expectations as both a “manager with a manager” and a “manager with direct reports.” They must contribute to both high-level strategy conversations and to personal development chats², while still finding the time to execute their own tasks. With all these demands, how likely are managers to actually feel fully effective? When asked, only 1 in 5 managers report consistently performing critical manager behaviors such as helping their team prioritize their work³.
For this month’s Research Drop, we take a closer look at what behaviors contribute to effective management practices, how attainable it feels to perform these behaviors consistently, and how to create a work environment that supports managers.
What constitutes effective manager behavior?
With the wide variety of responsibilities that fall under a manager’s remit, it may be challenging for managers to know how to focus their time. An extensive review of existing literature and research allowed us to pinpoint three main themes of effective manager behaviors: Coach & Mentor, Build Cohesion, and Facilitate High Performance. Within these three themes, we outlined 10 distinct behaviors that managers can perform to support their team members.
Coach & Mentor
Helping direct reports to excel not only in their role but also in their career is a vital part of people management. Managers can be a key piece in helping their team members see what future roles they may want to pursue, what skills they may need to cultivate, and how they can position themselves to excel in their career. They can provide guidance and stretch assignments in their 1:1 conversations and also leverage team meetings to connect the dots from the company’s strategy to their team’s daily work.
Build Cohesion
Managers with multiple direct reports can also be a conduit to effective collaboration between team members and with broader organizational stakeholders. Organizations and teams within them are composed of employees with a variety of perspectives and skills. Employees thrive when they feel comfortable expressing themselves and are recognized for their hard work. These factors contribute to a sense of psychological safety where employees are empowered to ask questions, share their thoughts, and acknowledge mistakes. When psychological safety is high, employees see higher productivity, reduced turnover, and less stress⁴. Managers also build strength across teams when they share information from leadership by ensuring that direct reports have the knowledge needed to make decisions and feel connected throughout the organization.
Facilitate High Performance
Employee productivity and performance are critical success factors and managers are often looked at to facilitate this output from their team. Managers support their team members’ focus when they help them to prioritize their projects and clarify what is expected from them. They can be pivotal in helping their team succeed by removing potential barriers to their progress, such as resolving conflicts or securing resources. Supporting innovation is a pillar of high performance⁵, so managers who give their team the space to experiment and think outside the box can enable novel ideas that push the boundaries.
Consistently performing these behaviors is challenging
When we asked managers how frequently they conducted the behaviors listed underneath the three behavioral themes, we found that while each of these behaviors are conducted at least “often” by an average of 84% of managers, they are only conducted “always” by an average of 32% of managers. Now, we recognize that managers can’t be expected to perform at their best 100% of the time – they have a lot on their plates. To understand what sets top-performing managers apart, we analyzed how consistently they report engaging in the 10 research-backed behaviors of effective managers. We grouped managers into Effective Managers, who report consistently demonstrating at least 6 of the 10 behaviors, and Typical Managers, who engage in them with varying levels of consistency (a similar methodology used to categorize High Performing Organizations and Typical Organizations in our HPO report). Through this we found that only 1 in 5 managers fell into the Effective Manager group.
The difference in how consistently Effective and Typical Managers engage in key behaviors is clear, with variations up to 68% across the ten behaviors. For example, just 22% of Typical Managers report always welcoming diverse perspectives, while 90% of Effective Managers consistently do so.
Interestingly, the most challenging behavior for both groups was to hold consistent 1:1s. Calendars can be tricky to manage, especially with many direct reports or a globally dispersed team. Managers may also not feel a need to engage their team members individually on a recurring basis. By not engaging in 1:1 meetings, managers miss out on opportunities to create alignment with their team and to provide the necessary guidance and support needed for their direct reports to thrive. 1:1s also positively impact engagement and retention - important outcomes for any manager to monitor⁶.
Top-of-mind managerial behaviors vary across job levels
Beyond a base understanding of the frequency of effective behaviors, we found that certain levels of managers are focused on executing different sets of behaviors. Within our data, we split by C-Level Executives, Directors/VPs, and Managers and each job level was more consistently focusing on a different bucket of behaviors.
- C-Level Executives were more highly focused on Coach & Mentor behaviors, especially connecting daily work to the bigger picture and company strategy – 30% more managers at this job level “always” perform this behavior as compared to the other two levels. C-Level Executives are in a prime position to be able to cascade this support to their teams and beyond, helping sharpen the line of understanding between strategy and tasks.
- Directors and VPs prioritized more Build Cohesion behaviors, where they bring together siloed teams, share successes across departments, and communicate important information. Directors and VPs are likely to host Town Halls and functional meetings, as well as create connections between groups to better drive organizational success.
- Managers most often engaged in Facilitate High Performance behaviors, directly supporting their teams to execute tasks. Managers are the first line of support for Individual Contributors, helping them manage their bandwidth, focus their time, and align their goals.
While we found that job level did relate to differences in behavioral frequency likely due to the nature of the job levels themselves, it is important for managers to be flexible in how they balance their time. Depending on organizational strategy and team goals, direct reports at all levels may need more targeted (or more well-rounded) support from their managers to be successful. This level of situational awareness enables managers to focus on the most effective behaviors for their team, not just the ones that may be most top-of-mind based on their level.
Contexts that can enable effective manager behaviors
There are components of an organization’s culture, practices, and norms that impact whether a manager has the tools, skills, and motivation that they need to be effective and impactful. In our research, we discovered three contexts that were related to consistently performing effective manager behaviors: engagement, burnout, and manager tenure.
Feeling engaged provides energy and motivation to balance manager demands
Ninety-three percent of Effective Managers were also engaged, as compared to 76% of Typical Managers. When managers are thriving, they likely feel excited and passionate about their people manager duties – enabling them to be available and supportive for their direct reports. Feeling engaged brings energy, focus, and positive emotions to work. These feelings can be contagious to the manager’s team members⁷, driving a reinforcing flywheel of engagement. When organizations create an environment where managers can thrive, it can cascade throughout the entire company.
Burnout causes strain that can limit managers abilities to support their team
Effective Managers are less likely to report burnout indicators (e.g., overwhelming workload, conflict between home and work demands) than Typical Managers. While 40% of Effective Managers show at least one sign of burnout, the number rises to 59% among Typical Managers. Without the additional stress and strain of burnout, managers have more capacity to engage in a wide variety of responsibilities. Manager burnout is prevalent and is found to be higher than employee burnout⁸, making it critical that organizations focus burnout prevention not just at the employee level but by creating initiatives to directly mitigate manager burnout.
Manager tenure can come with multiple developmental and learning opportunities
When comparing time spent in a manager position, we found that managers with 11+ years of manager tenure were 2x as likely to be Effective Managers than Typical Managers. Those with more experience as a manager have likely spent more time improving their managerial skills and practices, being involved in learning and developing programming, and learning from their experiences than those newer to management. It may also be that long-standing managers generate blind spots where they have consistently done a practice for so long that they overestimate how often they actually perform these behaviors.
Regardless of tenure, managers get value from expanding their leadership skills, as a growth mindset approach empowers managers to continuously refine and gain leadership competencies. Development opportunities help new and early managers get ahead and help long-standing managers reinforce good techniques (and learn a few new ones in the process!). Research shows that 86% of leaders who engaged in a leadership program saw significant improvements to their overall leadership effectiveness⁹. Directly targeting some of these essential skills through organization-sponsored growth opportunities, mentoring programs, and learning courses, managers are likely to feel more prepared and equipped to lead.
Effective managerial behaviors are crucial for driving team performance and fostering a positive work environment. By consistently engaging in coaching, building cohesion, and facilitating high performance, managers can significantly impact their team's success. As manager responsibilities continue to develop and evolve, it is essential to create a supportive environment that enables managers to thrive and get the resources they need to lead their teams effectively.
Stay tuned for our March Research Drop to keep up with what the Viva People Science team is learning!
2 Culture Amp (2023). State of the Manager Report.
3 Viva People Science Manager Action Taking survey from July 2024 using an Online Panel Vendor commissioned by Microsoft, which studied 500 US-based people managers across 10+ industries who have at least 5 direct reports.
4 Microsoft Viva Blog. (November 15, 2024). 3 Steps to Build Psychological Safety on Your Team.
5 Viva People Science. (October 2023). Redefining High Performance in the New Era of Work.
6 Rogelberg, S. G. (2024). Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1: 1 Meetings. Oxford University Press.
8 Harvard Business Review. (May 18, 2023). More Than 50% of Managers Feel Burned Out.
9 Center for Creative Leadership. Why is Leadership Development Important? 4 Reasons to Invest.
Updated Feb 12, 2025
Version 3.0
Megan_Benzing
Microsoft
Microsoft
