Are employers doing enough to select the right managers?

The internet is filled with stories of employees’ experiences with bad managers. 

A recent case reported by Times of India involves an employee from Genpact, a technology-based company in India, who was denied leave after experiencing chest pain that then led to a panic attack. Since that post, many employees from the same company have come forward on LinkedIn sharing similar experiences with managers and overall management. 

While none of the allegations have been proven, — an internal investigation is underway, according to the Times of India. 

Stories like this, however, bring up a bigger conversation about how managers are selected and trained in the first place. 

Managers have a significant impact on retention, according to Monster’s 2026 Workplace Relations Report. The report finds that 55 per cent of workers say they would stay if they had a good manager, and 56 per cent say they have left their previous workplace because of a bad one. 

Rick Hackett, a professor at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University, says the  stakes of picking a manger goes beyond the individual. When a poor manager oversees a team, the cost of underperformance multiplies across every person on it. 

“One manager oversees, say, five to seven people. If you’re a poor manager without the skills to manage people effectively, look at the cost of that — it’s the cost of underperformance across seven people,” Hackett says. 

“The cumulative effect is very negative for the unit and then for the organization. These are issues organizations should be taking very seriously.” 

Managers play a fundamentally important role in building engagement and commitment in the workforce. 

“It’s incumbent upon the organizational infrastructure to ensure that the people selected to manage are chosen with the appropriate experience and credentials, and that they receive ongoing support in the way of training and development,” he says. 

Most organizations pick wrong people 

Gallup’s 2026 Workforce Report estimates that 82 per cent of the time, organizations choose the wrong manager — and a lot of that comes down to how they measure talent. Often, decisions are made based on technical performance rather than people's skills. 

“This has been going on for quite some time. The more progressive companies have moved beyond it, but more traditionally, it was quite common to select among the more proficient, productive technical employees for managerial roles,” Hackett says. 

While technical performance provides credibility, what is equally important is whether someone has the interpersonal skills to lead. 

It is a widespread misconception that anyone can be a manager — a skill anyone can simply pick up, Hackett says. “That’s where the fallacy comes in. That’s not true.” 

How to identify the right managers 

So, how can employers go about selecting the best fit for management roles? 

Hackett says there are quite a few different assessments organizations can use to evaluate whether someone has management skills. 

Some companies will have a 360-degree feedback loop where assessments of a candidate are provided by colleagues. Others will directly consult with coworkers to identify who the natural leaders are within a given group, he says. 

The Public Service Commission, Hackett points out, approaches the process more systematically — developing scenario-based questions in interviews to assess whether a candidate’s responses would be considered suitable for a management position. 

“You run scenarios where you give a hypothetical case — for example, an employee with issues at home with a sick relative has approached you asking to take a couple of days off without pay or to reschedule, promising to make amends. What would you do? How would you handle the situation? These are behaviorally based questions,” he says. 

On the other hand, companies that tend to operate in high-tech, team-based environments will put potential candidates together to work through a case, assessed by observers. 

“Observers assess the extent to which each person listens, encourages input from others, whether they dominate, and whether they take time to incorporate feedback from other team members in harnessing it toward a solution,” Hackett says. 

Supporting managers once they’re in the role 

However, once someone is placed into a management position, he says organizations need to continue to provide a framework for evaluating and supporting their performance. 

For Hackett, that includes a three-component model called the Ability, Motivation, and Opportunity (AMO) framework. 

The ability component focuses on whether the manager has the skills to do the job — and if not, whether it is something that can be developed over time, he says. Motivation focuses on whether a manager may be capable but is not being incentivized, recognized, or led in a way that inspires them. Opportunity looks at whether managers have the tools, resources, time, and people needed to do the job effectively. 

“Any one of those three components — ability, motivation, or opportunity — functions like a multiplicative factor: if any one of them is zero, the result is zero,” he says. 

When no one wants to be the manager 

There are many professionals who don’t want to step into leadership or management roles — particularly younger workers. A 2024, report Robert Walters published in found that 57 per cent of Gen Z professionals don’t want to be part of middle management, with some trying to avoid the role altogether. 

Hackett says in these cases, organizations should not be pushing people into management roles. Instead, organizations should look outside for someone who has credibility, and the genuine desire to be a good people manager. 

“If you marry those two — motivated to be an effective manager, and with years of experience or training to acquire those people management skills — why would you not go for that?” he says.