New data from Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report shows that leaders (defined as “managers of managers”) are more likely to be thriving in their lives and engaged at work than those who work for them. Yet they are also more likely than less senior managers or individual contributors to report negative daily emotions. The implication is that leaders have more difficult days than the people they lead — a paradox potentially hidden behind higher engagement and overall life satisfaction.
How We Think About Our Lives vs. How We Feel
A person’s wellbeing can be measured across many dimensions, and no single metric tells the whole story about people’s lives. For example, one’s self-evaluation of their overall life does not always match how they experience it from day to day.
To measure both general perceptions and daily experiences, Gallup asks respondents to rate their current and future lives on a scale from zero to 10, with 10 representing the best possible life. Those categorized as “thriving” rate their current life a 7 or higher and their life in five years an 8 or higher. In addition to this question, Gallup asks respondents whether they experienced key emotions “a lot” during the previous day.
Gallup’s latest global workplace survey from 2025 examines how employees worldwide perceive their work and lives. Comparing leaders, managers, project managers and individual contributors, it becomes apparent that occupying higher leadership roles is linked to higher levels of job engagement and greater general wellbeing. At the same time, leaders are also the most likely to experience negative emotions. For example, compared with individual contributors, leaders more frequently report experiencing stress (+7 percentage points), anger (+12), sadness (+11) and loneliness (+10) the previous day.
Also, leadership is missing out when it comes to positive emotions, being less likely than individual contributors to say they smiled or laughed a lot the previous day and less likely than managers to report experiencing enjoyment.
The findings vary somewhat in different regions of the world. For example, in contrast to the global pattern, in the U.S., leaders are less likely to experience negative daily emotions than those they manage. U.S. leaders also report lower levels of daily negative emotions than leaders globally, with one exception — stress.
The Emotional Burden of Leading Others
What might explain the discord between leaders’ high engagement at work and personal thriving versus their higher rates of negative daily emotions? On the positive side, leadership roles give people a greater sense of status, agency and voice. They are respected, called upon to make important decisions and valued for their opinions. These elements are likely to leave leaders more engaged at work. They are typically paid more than those they manage. Gallup research shows life evaluation is related to income.
On the other hand, leadership challenges include greater social distance from colleagues and the burden of making difficult, even unpopular, decisions. Leaders deal with high-stakes decisions, sometimes with ambiguous information. The workplace has also changed in many ways since the pandemic, with increases in remote and hybrid work, rapid technological transformation driven by AI, and a shifting global geopolitical environment.
Engagement Reduces Leaders’ Negative Emotions
When building, growing or maintaining their workplace, leaders often focus on the importance of employee engagement, yet the data show that leadership engagement matters too. Gallup finds that when leaders are engaged, they are less likely to experience negative emotions, at rates comparable to or lower than those of individual contributors. In other words, engagement at work may alleviate some of the emotional toll of leadership.
The 21-point difference in loneliness between engaged and non-engaged leaders is instructive. When leaders are engaged, they find their work absorbing, they enjoy the people they work with, and they feel connected to their organization. It makes sense that these same leaders would feel significantly less lonely on any given day. Previous Gallup research has also found a strong link between engagement and lower reported loneliness among employees more generally.
Conclusion
Leaders are engaged when they have role clarity, strong connections with others in their organization, a clear purpose, and line of sight into overall progress. This benefits not only them but also everyone they lead. When leaders themselves are engaged, Gallup research finds a cascade effect that extends to the rest of the organization.
Leaders can take their engagement into their own hands. By focusing their leadership development on four core responsibilities, leaders can receive what they need while meeting the needs of those who report to them: defining the organization’s purpose and whom it serves; inspiring hope, trust, stability and compassion in people across their teams; making decisions with full awareness of their strengths and limitations; and defining what exceptional performance looks like for their organization while holding everyone accountable to that standard.
Read the full article BY JIM HARTER AND RYAN PENDELL / Gallup
