The middle manager squeeze: layers came out, spans got wider, and AI arrived without anything coming off the plate. The manager is where all of that meets, and they are the last person anyone asks how it is going.
Your managers are the ones who have to make AI work on the floor: the new tools, the questions nobody else answers, the person who is quietly worried about their job. They are also the ones you have quietly stopped checking in on, because their teams look fine.
I asked her how it was going and she said fine. She has said fine for four months.
A founder, 120 people, in May
Out in the wild
Three things you have heard this year.
None of these is a complaint. That is what makes them easy to walk past, and it is also why they are worth reading twice.
It runs fine.
What is usually underneathI have not had time to think about it, and if I say that out loud it becomes an hour-long conversation I also do not have.
My team sorts it out themselves.
What is usually underneathI let go because I cannot follow all of it any more, and I am hoping that is the same thing as trusting people.
I will pick it up as well.
What is usually underneathNothing came off when this came on, and I stopped asking whether that was the intention somewhere around March.
I have sat opposite all three of these. What they have in common is that the manager is protecting you from the answer, and doing it well enough that you believe them. That protection is part of the job as most managers understand it, which is exactly why asking once is not enough.
What it is
Three things arrived at the same door.
Organisations got flatter, so a manager who had eight people now has twelve or more. AI arrived and every team invented its own way of using it. And the human side of that, the person who is quietly worried and the one who is racing ahead, lands on the same desk.
Nothing was removed to make room for any of it. Each piece looks reasonable on its own, which is how the load gets built without anyone deciding to build it.
The manager is the shock absorber of a company. Very useful, and nobody checks how much travel is left in it.Paul Musters, founder of emaho
The tell is that their teams still look fine. That is what a shock absorber does. By the time the team stops looking fine, the manager has been running on nothing for about six months and the conversation you needed to have was in February.
The five questions
What to ask, and what you are listening for.
Five questions for one conversation of half an hour. About them, not about their team's output. The second column is the part that matters: the same answer means different things depending on how it arrives.
01
What came onto your plate this year that was not there before?
Sounds fineA specific list, and they know which of it is theirs to keep.
Worth staying on“Bit of everything.” That is somebody who has stopped separating it.
02
What came off?
Sounds fineThey can name something, and who took it over.
Worth staying onA pause, then a laugh. Nothing came off, and they have already made peace with that.
03
Who on your team is furthest along with AI, and who has not started?
Sounds fineNames, quickly, with an example of what each one does.
Worth staying onA general answer about the team. They have lost sight of the individuals, usually because there are too many of them now.
04
What do people bring to you that you have no answer for?
Sounds fineThey name it, and they know where to send it.
Worth staying on“Whether their job still exists in two years.” If that is landing on them daily and nobody above them has said anything, they are carrying your silence.
05
When did you last have a week you would call normal?
Sounds fineA recent one, and they can say what made it normal.
Worth staying onThey have to think back further than a quarter. Or they answer about their team again, which is its own answer.
Ask them in this order. The first two are easy and factual, which is what makes the fourth one possible half an hour later. Starting at four gets you a version of fine.
How to see it
One conversation, this week, with one manager.
Not a programme. Half an hour, in the diary, about them. If you have five managers, that is five half hours spread over two weeks, and it will tell you more than any engagement survey you could commission.
Which of these is closest to your situation? Pick one and you get the three questions I would open with, plus the line to start on.
All four situations, if you would rather read them than click:
Gone quiet. Open with question five, then two and four. Start on: “I want half an hour about you, and I am not going to ask about your team's numbers once.”
Team grew. Open with three, then two and one. Start on: “You have more people than you had last year. I want to know what that actually changed for you.”
AI everywhere. Open with three, then four and one. Start on: “You are the one holding the different ways people work. I want to hear what that costs you.”
New to managing. Open with one, then four and five. Start on: “Nobody hands over the list of things that are now yours. Let us write it together.”
One rule for the half hour. When they answer about their team, say you heard that and ask again about them. Most managers will do it two or three times before they realise you actually meant it, and that third answer is the one you came for.
What the research says
This is not just your company.
Gallup's 2026 State of the Global Workplace, subtitled The Human Side of the AI Revolution, put manager engagement at 22%, down from 31% in 2022.1 Nine points in three years, and the sharpest part of the fall came in a single year: 27% to 22% between 2024 and 2025.
Manager engagement, 2022 to 2025. Gallup points at organisations flattening: layers removed, wider spans for whoever is left, engagement following it down.1
Gallup ties this directly to AI in the same report: how far AI adoption gets depends on whether managers are supported, and right now global employee engagement is at a five-year low.1 That order matters. The manager is upstream of the adoption you are trying to buy.
There is a second number worth holding next to it. Across BCG's 2026 survey, 47% of people now spend more time directing AI than doing the work themselves.2 Managing AI is becoming a management job for everyone, and the person who was already managing is the one who feels that first.
The level your managers are managing inside
Six questions, three minutes, nobody sees the answers. The level, what it costs, and what one step up changes.
The load peaks at Level 2, and it is the level almost nobody skips.
In the five AI Culture Levels we use with clients, Level 2 is daily individual use with no shared standard. Everyone has found their own way and none of it is written down, so the person holding all those different ways together is the manager. About a quarter of organisations are sitting there right now.
01Campfire60%
02Wild West25%Manager load peaks here
03Blueprint10%
04Engine4%
05Ecosystem1%
Share of organisations per level. At Level 2 every team has its own method and the manager holds the difference between them. At Level 3 the method is written down, so it stops being carried by a person.3
The step to Level 3 is where this gets lighter, and the mechanism is unglamorous. Once the way of working is written down, the manager stops being the place where every private method meets. They can point at the page rather than translate between five people, and translating is most of what is eating their week.
What a measurement gives a manager
An Operating Profile in use. Personality type and AI level in one profile, with the agents that fit it.
Question three in the set above is the one managers most often cannot answer any more, and it is not a failing. With twelve people and no shared standard, keeping track of who works how is a full-time job on top of the one they have.
The measuring is done per person: how somebody thinks and works, and how far along they are with AI. A manager gets that as a picture of their own team, which turns question three from something they have to carry in their head into something they can look at. It also gives them one honest thing to bring to their own manager, which is usually the harder conversation.
About emaho
emaho measures one Operating Profile per person: personality type and AI level in a single profile. On that we build a personal set of AI agents that fit how that person works, inside the tools they already use. Fifteen minutes to complete, first profile free, built for companies between 20 and 500 people.
Fifteen minutes per person. No credit card, no strings.
What works
Four things, and the first one is free.
Have the conversation. Half an hour per manager, about them, with the five questions. Put it in the diary as a recurring thing rather than a one-off, because the honest answer usually arrives the second or third time you ask, once they believe the question was real.
Then take something off. Anything. One report they can stop writing, one meeting they can stop attending, one approval they no longer need to give. It matters less what it is than that it happens, because the message the manager reads is that the load is something you are willing to touch.
Answer the question they cannot answer. If people are asking their manager whether their job still exists in two years, and nobody above has said anything about it, that manager is carrying your silence around all day. You do not need certainty to say something. You need to say what you know, what you do not, and when you will say more.
And write down how the work is done, so the manager stops being the place where five private methods meet. That is the Level 3 step, and of the four this is the one that actually lowers the load rather than sharing it out.
Had the conversation? Tell me what surprised you
One line is enough. I will tell you what I usually see behind that answer and what I would do next. No pitch. An answer, and then silence unless you write again.
Your managers carry it until they stop carrying anything.
The one you will feel first is that they leave, and they leave well. Notice period worked properly, handover documented, nothing dramatic. Then you find out how much was living in that person's head, and you spend a year rebuilding something you did not know you had.
Before that there is a quieter version. A manager running on empty stops developing anyone. The one-to-ones become status updates, the difficult feedback gets postponed, and the junior who needed twenty minutes of attention a week does not get it. None of that shows up anywhere for about eighteen months, and then it shows up everywhere at once.
And your AI plans go through these people. Gallup's read is that manager support is what decides how far adoption gets.1 A manager with nothing left will not champion a change that makes their week harder before it makes it easier, and they will be right to hold back.
Asked and answered
What managers ask about this one
What is the middle manager squeeze?
It is what happens when layers of management are removed, spans of control grow, and new work like AI arrives without anything being taken away. The manager sits where all three meet. Gallup's 2026 State of the Global Workplace put manager engagement at 22%, down from 31% in 2022, and named organisational flattening as the likely driver.
Why are middle managers struggling more than their teams?
Because the load lands on them first and they are trained to absorb it. New tools, questions nobody else answers, and the person quietly worried about their role all arrive at the same desk, while the manager's own check-in is the one that gets cancelled. Their teams often still look fine, which is exactly what a shock absorber does.
How much has manager engagement dropped?
Nine percentage points in three years, from 31% in 2022 to 22% in 2025, according to Gallup's 2026 State of the Global Workplace. The steepest single-year fall came between 2024 and 2025, from 27% to 22%. Global employee engagement over the same period sat at a five-year low.
What should I ask a manager who says everything is fine?
Ask what came onto their plate this year, then what came off. The first question is easy and factual, the second one is where the pause happens. If nothing came off and they laugh about it, that is your answer, and it arrived without anybody having to admit to struggling.
How do I check in on a manager without it feeling like a performance review?
Say at the start that this half hour is about them and that you will not ask about their team's numbers once, then keep that promise. When they answer about their team anyway, say you heard it and ask again about them. Most managers do that two or three times before they believe the question was real.
How do you find out how much AI work your managers are absorbing?
Ask them anonymously, because they will not raise it in a meeting. emaho reads organisations on five AI Culture Levels with a scan of six questions and three minutes. Managers carry the most at Level 2, where everyone works their own way and every question about AI lands on them.
Does AI make management harder or easier?
Harder first, in most companies. BCG found in 2026 that 47% of people now spend more time directing AI than doing the work themselves, so managing AI is becoming part of everyone's job, and the person who was already managing feels it first. It gets easier once the way of working is written down instead of living in five people's heads.
What is the link between manager support and AI adoption?
Gallup's 2026 report ties them together directly: how far AI adoption gets depends on whether managers are supported. That order is worth noticing. The manager sits upstream of the adoption you are trying to buy, so a manager with nothing left will hold back on a change that makes their week harder before it makes it easier.
Where does the manager load come from in AI adoption?
Mostly from variation. At Level 2 of the five emaho AI Culture Levels, everyone has found their own way of working with AI and none of it is written down, so the manager is the place where five private methods meet and get translated. Writing the method down is what makes that stop.
How does this relate to AI maturity levels?
The manager load peaks at Level 2, Wild West, where use is daily and individual with no shared standard, and about a quarter of organisations sit there. At Level 3 the way of working is documented, so the manager can point at a page instead of translating between people. Translating is most of what eats their week.
Close by
What lands on the manager comes from somewhere.
Each of these three ends up on the same desk, which is why they are worth reading in this order.
Give your managers something to look at instead of carry.
The half hour tells you how they are. A profile per person gives them the picture of their own team they have been holding in their head, which is the part that takes the most out of a week.
Ask your managers what they are carryingHalf an hour each, and most of them will name something you did not know had landed on them.
Hand them the picture of their own teamEvery profile in their team on one page, which is what they have been holding in their head.
Take one real thing off the pileThe list will be long. Removing one thing beats acknowledging all of it.
Fifteen years of leadership and team development in Dutch scale-ups. That practice now sits in software: one Operating Profile per person, with agents that actually fit. He writes these pages from what he runs into with clients, not from a research summary.
Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026: The Human Side of the AI Revolution, drawing on Gallup's largest global sample to date. Source of: manager engagement at 22% in 2025, down from 31% in 2022; the steepest single-year fall between 2024 and 2025, from 27% to 22%; global employee engagement at a five-year low; organisational flattening named as the likely driver, with layers removed and wider spans for the managers who remain; and the finding that manager support shapes how far AI adoption gets.
Boston Consulting Group, AI at Work, fourth annual edition, 3 June 2026. Global survey of 11,749 workers across 14 markets. Source of: 47% now spending more time managing and directing AI than doing the work itself.
emaho AI Culture Levels. Level 2, Wild West, is daily individual use with no shared standard and holds about a quarter of organisations. Level 3, where the way of working is documented, holds about one in ten. Calibrated against BCG 2025 and McKinsey 2025.
Numbers are quoted as published. The three things managers say, in the recognition block, are composites from conversations rather than quotations from named people.
