The leader’s guide to a culture people do not want to leave
UK managers score in the high seventies on being decent and in the high fifties on developing anybody. This guide is about that gap: the six things the national data says managers are not doing, and what each one costs.
78% of UK employees with a line manager say that manager treats them fairly. Only 57% say the same manager gives them useful feedback, and only 57% say they support their development. Being liked and being led are not the same thing, and the gap between them is a training problem rather than a personality one. CIPD Good Work Index 2026, 4,392 UK employees with a line manager, fieldwork December 2025 to February 2026
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The rest of the guide covers why likeable management is not the same as good management, then all six gaps the national data identifies: what each one is, what it costs you and the smallest change that moves it. One-off, you won’t need to do this again on this device.
Being liked is not the same as being led
The CIPD’s 2026 survey asked 4,392 UK employees with a line manager to rate that manager. The scores split neatly into two groups, and the split is the most useful thing in it.
What managers are doing well
Treats me fairly, 78%. Respects me as a person, 77%. Is supportive if I have a problem, 75%. Three quarters of employees say their manager is someone decent to work for, and that is a real achievement worth acknowledging before anything critical is said. It is also the part most organisations measure, because it is what engagement surveys are built to detect and what “culture” is usually taken to mean.
What they are not doing
Helps me perform well in my job, 59%. Supports my learning and development, 57%. Provides useful feedback on my work, 57%. Fewer than six in ten. These are not warmth questions, they are competence questions, and they are the ones that shape what somebody can build here. A manager can be genuinely kind and still leave someone’s career completely unattended.
People who leave a manager they liked rarely have a grievance to report, so they say the new job was a good opportunity, and it was. What they will not say is that nothing was going to change if they stayed. A likeable manager who never develops anybody produces resignations that look like nobody could have prevented them.
What the data says is missing, worst first
Each of these is a real number from the 2026 survey, in ascending order, so the first is where UK management is weakest. Each comes with what it costs and the smallest thing that shifts it.
Useful feedback · 57%
The weakest score in the whole set. Note the word: not feedback, useful feedback. Most people get plenty of the other kind, which is either an annual summary written to survive a moderation meeting, or nothing at all until something goes wrong. Useful means specific, close to the event and about the work rather than the person. The cost of getting this wrong is that people either repeat mistakes nobody named, or spend years unaware of the one habit holding them back, which they then hear about from a new employer.
- The smallest change: one specific observation within 48 hours of the thing happening. Not saved up for a review, and not softened into uselessness.
Learning and development · 57%
Joint weakest, and the one most often misread as a budget problem. It is usually not. What people describe is not the absence of a training catalogue, it is the absence of anyone thinking about where they are going. Development is a conversation before it is a course, and the conversation costs nothing. The cost of skipping it is that ambitious people conclude their future is elsewhere, and they are frequently right, because nobody here was constructing one for them.
- The smallest change: ask each person what they want to be able to do in two years that they cannot do now. Then remember the answer and refer to it unprompted.
Helps me perform well in my job · 59%
Only 59% agree that their manager helps them do their job well. A quarter will not commit either way and 15% disagree outright. That is a lot of people who would not say the person running their work makes it go better, and it is what happens when the management role drifts into administration: chasing status, forwarding requests, attending meetings on behalf of the team. Removing obstacles is the actual job, and it is measurable. If you cannot name the biggest thing currently slowing each person down, you are not in a position to remove it.
- The smallest change: end every one to one with “what is in your way, and can I move it?” Then move at least one thing before the next one.
Getting people to work together · 59%
The team-level equivalent, and the one most invisible to the manager themselves. Where this is weak, work still gets done, but it gets done in parallel: individuals delivering their bit, friction between two people that everybody has quietly designed around, one person who is never asked. The cost lands as duplicated effort, decisions revisited because the right person was not in the room and a team that performs noticeably below the sum of its parts.
- The smallest change: name the two people who need to be talking and are not, then put something in the diary that requires them to.
Can be relied on to keep their promise · 61%
Only 61% agree that their manager can be relied on to keep their promise, and 16% say outright that they cannot. Almost none of that is dishonesty. It is a manager who genuinely meant it, went back to their own overloaded week and never got to it. They do not realise the other person is still waiting. That asymmetry is the whole problem: the promise was one item on your list and the only item on theirs. Trust is not built by large gestures, it is built by small commitments that get kept, and it is destroyed the same way.
- The smallest change: stop making promises you have not diarised. “Let me check and come back to you by Thursday” beats “leave it with me” every time.
Recognises good work · 69%
The strongest of the six, and still only 69% who will say it happens. Recognition is the cheapest thing on this entire list and the most frequently delegated to a scheme, which is precisely why it stops working: an award nominated quarterly is not the same as your own manager noticing on the day. Specific beats effusive. “That was a good piece of work” is worth very little next to naming the actual thing that was good about it, because the second one proves you looked.
- The smallest change: once a week, tell one person exactly what they did well and why it mattered. Say it in front of other people where you can.
The same survey found 15% of employees who have a line manager never meet them at all to discuss performance, and nearly half of those (49%) said that was adequate. Both halves of that are worth pausing on. All six items above require a recurring conversation to exist in the first place, and one in seven people does not have one.
Develop the leaders your culture depends on
Every one of the six is a habit rather than a personality trait, which is what makes them trainable. Our Leadership Development Training works on them directly: how to give feedback people can use, how to run a one to one that is worth having and how to be relied upon. Onsite or online, tailored before delivery.
Enquire about Leadership Development TrainingThis guide is general information for employers and people leaders. All figures are from the CIPD Good Work Index 2026, the ninth wave of the CIPD and YouGov UK Working Lives survey, based on 5,074 UK employees with fieldwork from December 2025 to February 2026 and published 4 August 2026. The manager relationship figures are drawn from the 4,392 respondents who have a line manager. Related reading: our post on why engagement is not perks. Every session is tailored to your organisation before delivery.