A new Gallup study released Thursday sheds new light on worker-manager relationships, finding that about 50% of the 7,200 adults surveyed left a job “to get away from their manager.”
Interestingly, slightly more than half of those surveyed who gave the “highest agreement rating” to the statement “I feel I can approach my manager with any type of question” are considered actively engaged in their work, according to The Wall Street Journal, in a sign that manager openness may be tied to worker productivity.
The Journal also reported that goal setting and managing priorities is important for workers content with their managers:
The survey found that workers feel like they’re given little guidance for understanding what’s expected of them. Twelve percent of workers strongly agreed that their manager helps set work priorities. That 12% tends to be much happier at work than those who scored their bosses’ goal-setting at the bottom end of the scale.
“Clarity of expectations is perhaps the most basic of employee needs and is vital to performance,” according to Gallup’s report.