My manager is effective

The mean rating was 4.8 and the median 5.0 (n = 802 respondents). Ratings of 3 or below, the distressed range, made up 30.17% of the answers. The rating was associated with all four study measures. Higher ratings came with less cancellation (r = −0.67, 95% CI −0.75 to −0.58, p < 0.001, n = 150 engagements), higher customer satisfaction among active engagements (r = 0.69, 95% CI 0.56 to 0.78, p < 0.001, n = 94 engagements), a higher engagement indicator mean (r = 0.83, 95% CI 0.77 to 0.87, p < 0.001, n = 150 engagements) and lower intent to leave (r = −0.68, cluster bootstrap 95% CI −0.73 to −0.63, p < 0.001 with standard errors clustered by engagement, n = 753 respondents). After Holm correction, ratings differed by engagement status and lifecycle stage (Welch F 53.20, Holm p < 0.001, omega squared 0.456) and respondent role (Welch F 7.85, Holm p = 0.005, omega squared 0.013).

The 248 written responses came from 226 respondents on 112 engagements, and 169 answered C030, on what the respondent loves most about the job. Across all the responses, 213 were positive and 30 negative. Respondents named their manager among what they valued most, and those who criticized a manager described one who was absent or could not escalate. Many who rated the engagement low said the gap lay above their own lead. Active engagements with a negative written response had lower customer satisfaction, a more negative engagement mean written score came with cancellation, and respondents whose written responses were more negative reported higher intent to leave.

Ratings of 3 or below, the distressed range, accounted for 242 of the 802 answers (30.17%). The engagement mean fell in the distressed range in 28 of 150 engagements.

All 248 responses were secondary. Each answered a question outside the indicator's survey section and addressed the indicator in its content. They came from 9 questions. That secondary share ranked 1st from the highest among the 11 Part 4 indicators with 30 or more written responses, tied with seven other indicators, against a median of 100.00%.

Every one of the 169 responses to C030 named the manager among the three things listed, most as something the respondent loves about the job: a manager who backs the team, removes blockers, listens, explains the reasoning or pushes back on the vendor. Twenty-three called the manager the best they had worked for, excellent, outstanding or the best part of the job. Thirty-six described a manager who tried or at least listened, often on an engagement that was ending or falling apart.

Twenty-five responses described a manager who was absent, checked out, unresponsive, unable to protect the team or unable to escalate, including every one of the fourteen responses to C029, on the challenges that reduce job satisfaction. Seven of these said the respondent therefore fixed the data or decided the matter alone, because raising it went nowhere. One lead had not been on a single night call, so the respondent signed off on the respondent's own work.

Twenty-six responses rated the respondent's own lead or manager well and placed the gap above that person: no one above had run such work, training was two videos or two days of slides, a request went upward and nothing came back, or a governance model written for manual work was never rewritten. Ten responses described a lead who answered at once, sorted matters within an hour or brought specialists onto a call the same day.

Of the 248 responses, 30 (12.10%, 95% CI 7.93% to 16.67%) were negative and 9 (3.63%) carried the strongest negative score of −10. Positive responses numbered 213 (85.89%), and 5 were neutral. The mean written score was 4.1 (95% CI 3.4 to 4.7, n = 248 responses), and the median was 5.0.

Of the 248 responses, 244 came from respondents who also rated the indicator. Among them, the written score rose with the rating (Spearman rho 0.58, 95% CI 0.47 to 0.66, p < 0.001, n = 244 responses). The written responses corroborated the rating. Of the 30 negative responses with a rating, 25 (83.33%) came from respondents whose rating was in the distressed range.

Respondents who wrote about the indicator and gave a rating numbered 222, with a mean rating of 5.6. The 580 respondents who rated the indicator without writing about it had a mean of 4.5. The difference, 1.1 (95% CI 0.7 to 1.5), excluded zero. Ratings in the distressed range made up 24.77% of the ratings from respondents who wrote (55 of 222) and 32.24% of the ratings from respondents who did not (187 of 580).

Every figure in the segment tables is at respondent level. Segments with fewer than 30 respondents carry no interval. Segments with fewer than 10 report counts only.

Segment families recorded at engagement level were tested on engagement means. Respondent role and vendor type were tested on respondents. Where an expected count fell below 5, the test of the distressed share used Fisher's exact test for a two-by-two table, marked exact, or a Monte Carlo test, marked simulated. After Holm correction, ratings differed by engagement status and lifecycle stage (Welch F 53.20, Holm p < 0.001, omega squared 0.456). Active engagements in Production rated highest (mean 6.3, n = 96 respondents) and canceled engagements lowest (mean 3.2, n = 304 respondents). Ratings also differed by respondent role (Welch F 7.85, Holm p = 0.005, omega squared 0.013). Portfolio directors rated highest (mean 6.0, n = 28 respondents) and individual contributors lowest (mean 4.7, n = 622 respondents). Outsourcing model, institution type, process family, class of work and vendor type showed no difference.

Written sentiment differed by engagement status and lifecycle stage across the 112 engagements with a written response (Kruskal-Wallis H 14.46, df 3, p = 0.002). Of the groups with 10 or more responses, responses from canceled engagements were the most negative (mean 2.6, 76 responses) and responses from active engagements in Production the least negative (mean 6.1, 31 responses).

No test across respondent roles was run, because fewer than two roles had 30 or more written responses. Individual contributors wrote 215, engagement managers wrote 28 and portfolio directors wrote 5 responses.

Cancellation rate is the share of engagements canceled by the study date, measured at engagement level (150 engagements, 56 canceled). Canceled engagements were rated after cancellation. The association is therefore a descriptive contrast and not a forecast of cancellation.

Across the study set, higher ratings came with less cancellation (r = −0.67, 95% CI −0.75 to −0.58, Holm p < 0.001, n = 150 engagements). The association held after Holm correction in sixteen of the 20 segment levels tested.

Customer satisfaction is the percentage recorded against each engagement. The primary estimate uses the 94 active engagements. A descriptive contrast uses all 150 engagements.

Across the active engagements, higher ratings came with higher customer satisfaction (r = 0.69, 95% CI 0.56 to 0.78, Holm p < 0.001, n = 94 engagements). The association held after Holm correction in twelve of the 16 segment levels tested.

The engagement indicator mean is the mean of an engagement's ratings across the rated indicators, measured at engagement level (150 engagements). The indicator does not enter the mean.

Higher ratings came with a higher engagement indicator mean (r = 0.83, 95% CI 0.77 to 0.87, Holm p < 0.001, n = 150 engagements). The association held after Holm correction in twenty-four of the 24 segment levels tested.

Intent to leave is the answer to C019, “How likely are you to leave your current job in the next 12 months?”, rated 1 to 10. It is measured at respondent level on up to 798 respondents, with the engagement-level form reported alongside.

Respondents who gave higher ratings reported lower intent to leave (r = −0.68, 95% CI −0.72 to −0.64, Holm p < 0.001, n = 753 respondents). The association held after Holm correction in thirty-six of the 37 segment levels tested.

Two comparisons set the engagements with at least one negative response against all other engagements. Of the 125 other engagements, 38 had no written response addressing the indicator. These two comparisons therefore do not isolate written sentiment. Of the 25 engagements with a negative response, 12 (48.00%) were canceled, against 44 of the 125 other engagements (35.20%). The difference did not reach significance (Fisher exact p = 0.261). Customer satisfaction among active engagements differed between the two groups (mean 57.38% on 13 engagements against 65.17% on 81, Welch t −2.95, p = 0.008).

Two correlations test written sentiment directly. Across the 112 engagements with a written response, a more negative engagement mean written score came with cancellation (point-biserial r −0.21, p = 0.028). Across 209 respondents, a more negative respondent mean written score came with higher intent to leave (Spearman rho −0.39, p < 0.001). Of the four comparisons, three reached significance at 0.05.

The four associations were compared in pairs on their engagement-level forms, each oriented so that a higher value is the better outcome, across the 150 engagements with all four measures. After Holm correction, three of the six pairs differed. The association with the engagement indicator mean was the strongest and the association with cancellation the weakest.

Answers clustered within engagements (ICC 0.65). Clustering reduced the 802 respondent answers to the equivalent of about 209 independent answers. Respondent-level intervals therefore used the cluster bootstrap. Respondent-level tests of intent to leave used standard errors that allow for clustering by engagement.

No association was equivalent to zero. Each of the four differed from zero. The detection floor shown is the study floor at 150 engagements. Intent to leave was tested on its effective sample size.

Each change was computed before rounding and may differ by 0.01 from the difference between the two printed values.

All 22 checks held. A check holds when its test falls on the same side of 0.05 as the primary test. Where the primary test falls below 0.05, the check must also keep the sign of the primary correlation. The thin-base check removes the engagements in any level of outsourcing model or process family with fewer than 30 engagements. Institution type is not used for that check, because every one of its levels has fewer than 30 engagements.

Each of the four measures was computed from data the indicator does not contain. Each result is therefore a finding and not an arithmetic consequence.

Each deviation was computed before rounding and may differ by 0.01 from the difference between the two printed values.

The comparison covered 150 engagements. The indicator followed the study's typical pattern on all four measures, and no deviation held after Holm correction.

Among the 11 Part 4 indicators with 30 or more written responses, the indicator's share of negative responses, 12.10%, ranked 8th from the highest, against a median of 33.33%. Its mean written score, 4.1, ranked 9th from the most negative, against a median of 0.8.

The indicator most often present in the same responses was C018, “How happy are you with your current job?”, in 25 of the 248 responses (10.08%). C123, “Rate the adequacy of your employer's investment in training its workforce.” (21 responses), C036, “What stage is the engagement in?” (14 responses), C069, “I trust the customer.” (13 responses) and C100, “Rate how completely the customer's processes are mapped and documented to the depth agentic AI requires.” (11 responses) followed.

The most frequent theme was “Skills learned”, in 76 responses (30.65%). The second was “Team or colleagues”, in 38 responses.

About three in ten of all ratings of whether the manager is effective fell in the distressed range (242 of 802 answers, 30.17%). The rating was associated with all four study measures, and every association held under each of the 22 robustness checks. Canceled engagements rated far below the three active stages (mean 3.2, n = 304 respondents).

The written evidence separates the manager in front of the team from the structure above. Most respondents who wrote named their manager among what they valued, including on engagements that failed. Where they criticized a manager, it was for absence or for an escalation that never happened, and respondents left to decide alone said so. Many who rated the engagement low placed the gap above their own lead. Active engagements with a negative written response had lower customer satisfaction, a more negative engagement mean written score came with cancellation, and respondents whose written responses were more negative reported higher intent to leave.

The evidence is the reported experience of the vendor's delivery teams, collected in a single cross-section. The associations reported here are not causal.

Tests by respondent role and by vendor type treated respondents as independent. The section on clustering reports how far clustering within engagements reduced the information in respondent-level figures.

Customer management executives gave 2 answers, a base of anecdote strength.

Shares of written sentiment are shares of responses and not of the study set of respondents. The written score takes five fixed values, so its mean and median are coarse. Responses clustered within engagements (248 responses on 112 engagements). Intervals for written sentiment therefore used a bootstrap by engagement.