Many Employees Would Fire Their Boss

Nearly one-quarter of U.S. employees (24%) would fire their boss if given the chance. And as many as 51% of actively disengaged workers would get rid of their leader if they could.

These findings were gleaned from a recent Gallup Management Journal ( GMJ) survey of U.S. employees. Gallup researchers studied employee responses to see which factors differed most strongly among engaged employees (26% of respondents) and those who were not engaged (56%) or actively disengaged (18%). (See graphic "The Three Types of Employees.")

Not surprisingly, engaged employees aren't the ones wanting to bid their manager farewell. Just 6% of engaged workers say they would fire their boss if they had the chance.

This finding is consistent with earlier GMJ research, which indicates that engaged employees consider their relationship with their manager to be crucial to their success. Of engaged employees, 49% strongly agree that "A strong positive relationship with this person is crucial to my success at work," while just 12% of actively disengaged employees strongly agree with the same statement. In contrast, just 6% of engaged employees strongly disagree with this statement, compared to 33% of actively disengaged employees who strongly disagree with this statement.

Gallup uses its employee engagement survey, the Q ¹², to measure workplace engagement and glean insights about the kinds of manager behaviors that are most likely to cause employees to disengage from their workplaces. The GMJ survey results show that employees who doubt that their manager cares about them as an individual are far more likely to want to oust their boss.

Slightly more than half (53%) of employees who say they would fire their boss if they had the chance disagree with the Q ¹² item "My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person." Conversely, just 8% of workers who wouldn't fire their manager disagree with the "supervisor cares" item. It seems simple enough: If workers feel like their supervisor or someone at their company cares for them, they aren't as likely to want to fire their boss, according to workplace engagement research.

Less likely to recommend their company

Pop culture provides extreme examples of what can happen when employees don't want their boss to supervise them anymore. (See "Dilbert" cartoons, the TV show The Office, or the cult film Office Space.) Gallup research, in contrast, reveals a more subtle impact on business outcomes, but one that can profoundly affect a company's workforce and its sales and service. Workers who would fire their boss, for instance, are more than twice as likely as those who wouldn't dismiss their manager to not agree with the statement "I will be with my company one year from now" (37% versus 17%). Just about 20% of the U.S. workforce overall disagrees with this statement.

So, if employees who want to fire their manager are less likely than others to be working at their company a year from now, who will take their place if they leave? Probably not a friend or family member. Just 11% of workers who would fire their boss would recommend their current company as a great place to work to friends and family, but more than 40% of workers who would not fire their leader would recommend their company as a great place to work. Once again, the answers to this question among those who would not dismiss their boss are closer to those of the overall U.S. workforce (49%).

Employees who want to fire their manager not only won't recommend their company as a place to work to friends and family, they also aren't in a hurry to recommend their company's products and services. Only one-third of these workers (33%) say they would endorse their organization's goods and services. This is a significantly smaller percentage compared to responses to this question from those who would not fire their boss (54%) and the overall U.S. working population (49%).

Employees who want to fire their boss -- especially workers who are actively disengaged -- aren't likely to burn down the office building. They probably limit their grousing about their boss to their own inner monologues or to quiet exchanges with other employees over cubicle walls. But employees' disengagement with their supervisor can have real -- and negative -- consequences for their companies.