In this episode of the Proteus Leader Show, host Erika Andersen interviews leadership expert Kevin Kruse about the persistent problem of employee disengagement and how wholehearted leadership can reverse it. Kruse explains that engagement rates have been flat for decades, with roughly one‑third of workers actively engaged, a similar portion disengaged, and the rest indifferent. He attributes the decline to macro‑economic shifts that ended the "job‑for‑life" contract and to a lack of leadership development—most frontline managers receive little or no training. The conversation then moves to common, ineffective engagement tactics such as perks (foosball tables, picnics) and superficial survey handling where results are either hidden or acted on without real change, which can even worsen disengagement. Kruse presents the research‑backed core drivers of engagement: growth (learning and challenge), recognition (appreciation from leaders and peers), and trust (ethical behavior and confidence in the organization’s future). He emphasizes that a manager’s behavior accounts for over 70 % of engagement variance, making the manager the critical lever. Practical steps include regular career‑path conversations, timely specific recognition, and transparent communication that links daily work to the organization’s vision. Kruse also notes that these actions require little time or money but demand managers shift from task‑focused to people‑focused leadership. The discussion ties the three drivers to self‑determination theory (mastery, purpose, autonomy) and stresses a grassroots, bottom‑up approach to improving engagement. The episode ends with resources for listeners to learn more about Kruse’s work and Proteus tools.
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You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you will get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.
Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Kevin Kruse, whose mission is to convince everyone that wholehearted leadership for employee engagement is the key to unlocking both dramatic business results and better health and relationships for individuals. Based on his own experience as the CEO of multiple successful tech companies and global survey results from millions of respondents, Kevin focuses his work as a consultant, speaker, and bestselling author on the power of growth, recognition, and trust as key drivers of high-performing teams. So welcome to the show, Kevin. Thanks, Erika.
Fun to be here.
Yes, I'm so glad to have you. Now you and I have known each other for a while. We originally met at an authors' conference, if I'm remembering correctly.
Long time ago.
A long time ago, and I have so much respect for your work, and I really thought that your insights on employee engagement, especially as a function of leadership, now would be particularly useful to our listeners.
Great.
So let's get started. So my first question for you is, a lot of organizations today, and you know this better than almost anybody, are experiencing just an epidemic of employee disengagement. So why do you think that's happening?
Yeah, I think if you look at the data, it took a big fall 40-plus years ago, and it has stayed fairly flat for a long time. In fact, I'm sort of amused because there will be a headline that, you know, employee engagement has increased 1 percentage point. It means it went from, you know, 32% to 33%. But the bigger headline has, for decades now, has been, you know, there's, there's about a third that are actively engaged. There's, there's the middle part that is not, not engaged. But there's anywhere from 15% to 30% that's actively disengaged. And it's been that way. You know, they, year to year, the numbers move a little bit. But it's been bleak. And I think that—
Wow.
Macroeconomically, years ago, that whole compact about having a job for life, go join IBM, they'll never lay you off, all that broke along with pensions and everything else. So I think that's the big dip. And then we've never been able to get off that floor. And I think individually, within individual companies, and you see it with your work, unfortunately most companies are not doing enough with leadership development, training their frontline managers.
Yeah.
I don't have good data on this. You know, over and over again that like only 1 out of 4 or 5 managers out there ever really get any training. So it's no surprise that we can't do a better job of engaging our frontline workers.
Okay, so that's a great historical perspective, one that I wasn't aware of. So until the sort of mid-'70s, there was this compact of like, well, I'm pretty engaged because you're never going to fire me and I'm going to be here for the rest of my life and then I'm going to retire and I feel mostly okay about that. And then that fell apart and nothing really consistently attractive in a way has replaced that. Okay.
Yeah, when you mentioned that one of the 3 drivers is sort of trust, it's really a trust that the future will be bright. And people are feeling much more uncertain. There's more anxiety about the future. So that's what really tanked it.
Yeah, okay, okay. And then now, you know, Because employee engagement, and you again know this better than most people, has become a relatively big deal, at least in terms of lip service over the last 10 years, people are trying to do a lot of stuff. So what are some of the pitfalls to avoid? Like, what are some of the things you've seen that definitely don't work?
Yeah, well, the easy one I see all the time, it's the picnics and parties. Engagement is not about trying to make people happy or make them have fun. But that seems to be— I get emails, hey, I got appointed to the employee engagement committee, Kevin. Should we do a summer picnic or a service event?
Yeah.
And those can be great. I'm not against people having fun. I think those types of events are great for building social bonds inside of a company, breaking down silos. But there's no data that any of the foosball tables, the fully stocked refrigerators, the dogs at work, none of those things move the engagement needle. And then on an organizational level, the classic mistake is the company that says, all right, we are going to do an employee engagement survey, and I applaud that. But then the results come back and they're held onto like a hostage by the CEO and the VP of HR. And they say, oh wow, we got dinged on communication. So the CEO will do 2 emails a month instead of 1. And it doesn't work like that. It doesn't really work like that. It's a waste of time. So that's another mistake.
Yes. I want to pick up on that. Gosh, as is usually the case with us, I completely agree with everything you said. And 2 problems with employee engagement surveys. One is people do them and then keep them in a black box, like you said, where it's like, oh, we'll just do some things, but we won't tell people what happened. But the second, I think, failing, which is in some ways almost even worse, is share the results But then not do anything substantive to address issues that have been shown up in the survey.
Yeah, and that will actually disengage the team members. You know, we took the time to fill out your survey, and nothing ever happened from it. And so now we feel worse. You know, you don't care what we said. And then you're going to give me a new survey a year from now. And so you can actually harm the situation if you don't do the follow-up.
Yeah, yes, that's my impression, so I'm glad to hear that. And I love— this sounds awful, but I love that there's no data to support that, you know, foosball tables and bringing dogs to work really makes a difference in employee engagement, because people think that they do.
Yeah.
It's the first place where people go with engagement, and it's also the first place they go with culture. People think having a good culture means letting your dogs come to work and having a lot of good snacks in the break room. We know that it's more substantive than that, so let's go to that. So what does work? What should leaders do to support employee engagement, both as individuals and on an organizational level?
Yeah, well, you know, as you said in the intro, there's— and this is looking at the data from over 10 million workers in 150 countries. The database now is run by Connect— they're now called IBM Connexa. It used to be Connexa. And there's about a dozen drivers of engagement, but when you look at— I'm always trying to simplify everything.
Yeah.
So, you know, back when I, you know, had access to that data, I asked the researchers, I said, well, give me, you know, what would get me 70%? Like, what correlates to 70% of the engagement results? And they came back with that growth, recognition, and trust. So on an individual level, we all want to be growing. We want to be learning. We want to be challenged at work. The recognition just means we want to feel appreciated by our boss, by our peers. And again, that trust level, the fundamental level is ethics. You know, I don't want to be lied to or robbed Trump, but hopefully that's a low bar. The bigger trust issue is like, I trust that the leadership has a plan for the future. So, you know, the industry has a bright future. The company has a bright future. Therefore, I have a bright future career-wise. And the other key piece, you know, Gallup talks about, and I think this is very important, that another 70%, over 70% variance in engagement is tied to who our boss is.
Yeah.
So if you look at any big company, you could have an overall average score which is, say, strong, but then you look team by team, and you can have very low engagement scores. Same CEO at the top, same mission, vision, values, same benefits, all that stuff. What's the difference? The manager's the difference.
Yeah.
So once again, the reality on an organizational level is you've got to take that data out of the black box and give it down to the individual level. You know, Kevin, here's your individual engagement report. And overall, the company scored a 4.0 out of 5, but you scored a 3.7, you know, out of 5. So, You're on the wrong side of average, and here's where you're doing well. Here's room for improvement. And the only way those scores are going to change is if I, Kevin, share it with my team and have a candid conversation and say, all right, you know, I know I can do better. I want to be a better leader. I know this team can perform better. You know, we got dinged on communication. What would have to happen on this team, you know, for us to improve our communication scores?
Yeah.
And so it really has to be a grassroots thing. We know, you know, that growth, recognition, and trust are usually the top drivers. We don't want to be going backwards. We don't want to be kept in the dark. But what communication might look like to the software developers might be different than what it looks like to the sales representatives. So the answers have to come bottom-up instead of top-down.
Right. Okay, I love that. So if people aren't— if an individual leader is not— the feedback that he or she is getting is not great engagement, 2 things I'm hearing that jump out at me. One is you have to work it out in conversation. You can't just go up in a room and say, okay, well, I'm going to do this, that, and the other. You have to really talk with your people and listen to find out what exactly is the problem. And then the second important thing is you— and I love this, it's coming loud and clear— that you, I personally as the leader, have to take responsibility. We can't just say, well, you guys go figure it out.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
And I've met a lot. It is tough. And, you know, I've been on the wrong side of that average early in my career. And, you know, once you realize, okay, you know, even in bad times, even with bad CEOs, etc., the individual managers, you know, we are the filters of the communication, of the day-to-day culture, of taking a bad thing and talking about how we're going to work through it, or taking a bad thing and agreeing with everyone that it really stinks around here. So the leader is really that filter.
That's great. You know, it's interesting, another thing that occurs to me as I'm listening to you, Kevin, and I don't know if you've drawn this kind of comparison, but I just realized that growth, recognition, and trust are really aligned with mastery, purpose, and autonomy. You know, those—
Yes.
Self-determination theory talks about, right? Because growth is mastery and recognition is purpose. Like, are you recognizing that I'm lined up with delivering on what we're trying to do here? And trust is, you know, autonomy is a function of trust.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And in fact, when, again, I don't sell survey services. I have no dog in this fight. And you can actually see signs of good research because different consulting companies, they'll call it different things. You know, one will talk about growth, and another will talk about development, another will talk about challenge at work or something. But generally, I mean, the data doesn't lie. And you see it, you know, over and over and over again for the decades. You know, each individual might, you know, I might care more about growth. You might care, you know, more about recognition or whatever it is. We all have our own styles, but pretty much it's the same hot buttons.
Yeah. So, so one thing I'm inferring from what you're saying is that if I'm a leader and I want more engaged employees, either just because that's what I want or because, you know, surveys show, that if I really think about in my conversations with them How can I actually help you grow? How can I help you get the recognition that you want? How can I help build trust between you and me and between you and the organization? Then I'm going to be heading in the right direction.
And the good news, Erika, is it doesn't take a lot of time or money. You know, if I just sit with you every 6 months and have a career path conversation— hey, you know, where are you looking to go in the next few years? Can you still do that in this organization? What do you need to know? Who do you need to meet? pushes that growth trigger quite a bit. The recognition is the well-deserved, well-earned, specific and timely thank-yous or thank-you notes.
Yes.
The trust is making sure you know how the work you're doing today, this week, aligns with the greater future vision and goals of the company. And so these are things that it doesn't take a fancy corporate training department. It doesn't take anything that's really complicated. It's really— but we all, we're so crazy busy these days, we become Managers of tasks instead of leaders of people.
So it's just taking—
Yeah, right. We just need to pause and realize, like, wow, you know, as the boss, we are really important figures in these people's lives. Like, people remember their teachers, their sports coaches, and their bosses. And so, you know, everything we do impacts their careers and also how they go home at the end of the day. Are they going to fight with their spouse or hug their spouse? Are they going to, you know, hang out and be a good parent with their kids, or are they going to tell their kids to leave them alone because they're so So it's an important role, but again, the good news is growth recognition and trust, it's fairly easy to do.
I love— I always promise listeners that we'll have practical tips, and I love those things that you just said about growth recognition and trust. So doable, so feasible, so practical and resonant. And we could keep talking for a long time, and I also always promise my listeners that this will be short and sweet. So, oh, thank you so much, Kevin. This is just It's just great. It's so— I love when somebody can take, and you've done it so beautifully, something that seems big and unaddressable and break it down to, no, it's not that complicated. You can actually do it. You can create a better workplace where people are feeling more engaged.
If I have a superpower, Erika, it's that I can simplify, because I'm not a fancy guy.
It's wonderful. It's a wonderful superpower. So listeners, if you're interested in finding out more about Kevin and the work he does, which I'm sure you are, you can go to his website, which is kevinkruse.com. And to find out from some— get some Proteus tools about being the kind of leader that Kevin's talking about, you can go to proteusleader.com/topics and click on Accepted Leader. So thank you again, Kevin. This has been so great.
Thanks, Erika. I appreciate the opportunity.
And thanks to all of you for listening, and until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.
We hope you're feeling better equipped to create the career, the business, and the life you want. For more insights and tools for leadership and management, join us at proudestleader.com. Have an excellent day, and thanks for listening.
