Managers Are More Engaged. Employees Aren’t Seeing It. A New Management Challenge.

Why organizations must help managers make decision making and engagement more visible as AI reshapes the workplace

Managers say they are more engaged than ever. Employees tell a different story.

AMA’s new global research reveals that the disconnect may not reflect a lack of managerial effort. Instead, much of today’s management work is becoming harder for employees to see. Managers are spending increasing amounts of time making decisions, navigating uncertainty, reviewing AI-assisted work and applying judgment to complex situations, while employees continue to experience engagement primarily through communication, coaching, feedback and clear direction.

Based on responses from 1,088 professionals across seven global regions, AMA’s 2026 Management Research Whitepaper, The New Management Reality: AI, Engagement, and the Invisible Work of Managers, examines how AI is changing managerial work, why the engagement perception gap persists and what organizations can do to strengthen trust, performance and manager effectiveness.

Key findings include:

  • Managers and employees continue to see engagement differently. While 62% of managers said their engagement increased during the past year, 51% of employees said their managers’ engagement remained unchanged and 20% said it decreased.
  • Employees judge manager engagement through visible behaviors. Fifty-three percent of employees identified open and regular communication as a sign of an engaged manager, while 42% cited clear direction and expectations and 37% cited listening to employee concerns and supporting employee growth.
  • AI is changing managerial work rather than eliminating it. Thirty-six percent of managers use AI for routine or administrative work, while another 36% report spending more time reviewing AI outputs.
  • AI is reshaping delegation and decision support. Thirty-one percent of managers said AI has changed the types of tasks they delegate, while 30% rely more heavily on AI-generated data and insights when making decisions.
  • AI is raising expectations for employee productivity. Forty-one percent of managers said using AI has increased their expectations for the amount of work employees should be able to complete in a given period.
  • Managerial judgment remains essential. Managers report using AI to support decisions, not make them, increasing the need for critical thinking, deliberation and judgment in increasingly complex situations.

This Whitepaper offers practical recommendations to help organizations redefine manager effectiveness, strengthen decision-making capability, improve coaching and communication, and make the invisible work of management easier for employees to understand.

Leaders will also discover five actions organizations can take to close the engagement perception gap, including teaching managers to explain the reasoning behind decisions, combining critical thinking with AI, measuring both coaching and decision quality, and helping employees better understand the cognitive work managers perform.

Complete the form to download your complimentary resource.