The Employee Experience Under an Unprepared Manager. Let’s talk about something we hear in almost every exit interview, even when nobody says it directly: “I never really knew where I stood.” And honestly? That tracks. Most employees don’t leave because the work was too hard. They leave because the expectations kept moving, the feedback never came, and they got tired of guessing.
Quick clarification, this isn’t about bad managers. Most of the managers we’re talking about are good people who were great at their jobs. That’s why they got promoted. But being excellent at the work and being prepared to lead people who do the work are two different skill sets, and most organizations only teach the first one. That’s not a character flaw in the manager. It’s a gap in how we set them up.
What “quitting confusion” really means, layman’s terms. It’s the slow erosion of trust and clarity that happens when a manager hasn’t been taught how to set expectations, give feedback, or address problems early. Employees don’t experience it as “my manager is new at this.” They experience it as unclear priorities, inconsistent standards, and feedback that only shows up when something goes wrong.
Signs it may be happening on your team:
Employees ask coworkers what the manager actually wants
Performance issues linger because no one names them directly
Feedback happens once a year, or only when something breaks
Strong performers quietly disengage or start looking elsewhere
Turnover clusters under the same leader
The research backs this up. Gallup found that managers account for 70% of the variance in employee engagement. Meanwhile, research from the Chartered Management Institute found that roughly 82% of managers are “accidental managers,” promoted without formal management training. The person carrying the most weight in the employee experience is often the person we’ve prepared the least.
Why is this getting worse in 2026?
Leaner teams mean new managers are still carrying their old workload while learning to lead
Hybrid and dispersed teams make informal, hallway-style coaching harder to absorb
Higher expectations around feedback and transparency mean silence reads as avoidance
Budget pressure pushes training to “later,” and later rarely comes
So, what do leaders do with this? Here’s the encouraging part, most organizations aren’t skipping manager development out of neglect. They’re stretched, and training feels like something to get to later. But this doesn’t require a leadership academy. It starts with a few intentional moves:
Name the transition. Tell new managers this is a new job, not a bigger version of the old one
Teach the basics on purpose: setting expectations, giving feedback, addressing issues early
Give them somewhere safe to ask questions before problems grow
Check in on how their team is experiencing them, not just what their team is producing
A quick note from my side. When employees leave, the exit interview form usually says, “better opportunity.” What they often mean is they got tired of the guessing. The good news is this is one of the most fixable problems in your organization, and it’s the work we do every day. The People Perspective offers leadership training designed exactly for this, helping new accidental managers build the skills nobody taught them, setting expectations, giving feedback, and leading people with confidence.
If your strongest performers are stepping into leadership without a roadmap, we’d love to help you change that. Reach out and lets talk about what that could look like for your team.
-Elizabeth