We’ve changed what it means to be a manager

There is a group of people inside your organization who are being asked to do more than perhaps anyone else right now, and they are doing it largely without adequate support, training, or acknowledgment of how much the job has changed. I’m talking about managers. Not the C-suite navigating strategy, and not the frontline employees absorbing the day-to-day weight of change. The middle layer. The people expected to translate executive vision, increase team productivity, spot early signs of employee burnout, and hold teams together, while quietly dealing with their own fears about what AI, economic pressure, and organizational uncertainty mean for their futures. In Modern Health’s recent survey of 1,000 full-time U.S. employees from companies with 250+ employees, 82 of senior managers said being a manager is harder than ever. One in four say their direct reports’ mental health has worsened so far in 2026, yet only 37 feel strongly equipped to identify burnout in their teams. We are asking managers to be the first line of defense for workforce mental health, and we have not given them the tools to do it. THE DATA TELLS A STORY LEADERS CAN’T AFFORD TO IGNORE What makes this moment different is the compounding nature of what managers are absorbing. It is not one thing. It is everything, simultaneously. Seventy-four percent of senior managers expect AI to lead to layoffs at their company within three years. More than half fear for their own jobs. Meanwhile, 80 say AI has increased expectations of their personal output—double the rate of non-managers. They are being held to a higher bar at the exact moment the ground beneath them feels least stable. The toll is showing up in ways that should alarm every leader. Forty percent of senior managers have received a new mental health diagnosis in the past 12 months, more than three times the rate of non-managers. And while 86 report being satisfied with their mental health on the surface, 27 say their mental health has worsened compared to last year. Senior managers have become experts at masking. Fifty-four percent have been directly judged for using mental health days. Sixty-one percent avoid using them entirely out of fear. These are your people managers, the ones responsible for creating psychologically safe environments for their teams, and they don’t feel safe themselves. The trust problem runs deeper than this. Fifty-eight percent of employees say they feel safer talking to a chatbot about their mental health than the people whose job it is to support them. Just 33 strongly agree their employer values their mental health, down from 41 last year. And 65 say they have hidden mental health struggles to avoid appearing weak. WHERE TO START What this data tells me is that we have normalized suffering in silence. When that becomes the norm, the problems don’t disappear; they just become invisible until they’re impossible to ignore. Here’s what to do about it. Get a clear picture of the problem. The data is clear: Managers are burning out faster, being diagnosed at higher rates, and masking their struggles more effectively than anyone. Segment your pulse survey results by management level. Track manager PTO utilization or leave requests separately. Ask your benefits provider to break out EAP or mental health benefit usage by seniority band. Start aligning your workforce health data alongside attrition and absenteeism, as over time, all of these indicators are connected. Give managers explicit permission to be human. This sounds simple. It isn’t. Permission has to come from the top, modeled visibly and repeatedly. When senior leaders talk openly about their own struggles, use mental health days without apology, and acknowledge the weight of the current moment, it changes what managers feel licensed to do. Train managers for the job they actually have. The role has fundamentally changed. Managers today need skills in psychological safety, burnout recognition, and how to navigate conversations about emotional strain, uncertainty, and the weight of what’s happening in the world, not just performance management and goal setting. Most haven’t been given that training. Providing it is one of the most important things a business leader can do right now. Every strategy your company is trying to execute right now, whether it’s AI adoption, retention, or growth, runs through your managers. They are the connective tissue between what leadership decides and what actually happens. When managers are running on empty, everything costs more: Decisions take longer, teams underperform, talent walks. As leaders, we need to be more honest about what we’ve been asking managers to carry and acknowledge that asking more of them without giving more to them is no longer a sustainable approach. Alison Borland is chief people and strategy officer at Modern Health.