Are Managers Managing? Or Just Managing to Cope?

In fact, as much as 70% of team engagement sits in their hands. The problem? Those hands are full.

Heavier workloads, shifting work models, and rising expectations are squeezing managers tighter than a Tokyo commuter. So, how can you be expected to keep enough juice to power yourself and your team?

We spoke to Andrew Calvert, Pre-Sales Consultant at EZRA, to unpack why manager burnout is rising and what needs to change to help managers actually manage.

The problem behind the pressure

“We’re asking them to do too much,” Andrew says.

It starts innocently enough. You’re great at your job, so you get promoted. But instead of trading in old responsibilities for new ones, “We graft new tasks on top,” he explains. Before long, you’re “spinning 15 plates at once.”

Between walking the tightrope of competing priorities, performing the acrobatics of constant role-switching, and taming the lions of conflict, it’s a superhuman effort to stop the whole thing from becoming a circus.

The role of organizations: Stop stacking, start redesigning

Most of the strain isn’t personal—it’s structural.

“A lot of manager roles are based on stable, linear, predictable environments,” Andrew points out. But anyone working today knows the ground is constantly shifting.

Instead of piling on task after task, organizations need to reimagine the manager role for the modern era. “It might mean redistribution of tasks, automation, or the creation of new roles,” he explains. Otherwise, we’re asking managers to perform a player-coach role they simply don’t have the capacity for.

Remove conflicting expectations

Managers are responsible for carrying their teams forward, often with the added weight of individual targets to boot.

“As soon as you give a leader an individual quota, you're holding them back,” Andrew says. Why? Because rewarding individual results breeds individual heroes, not leaders.

“If we gave leaders a pure role of just working with their teams... I think they’d do better,” he believes. That makes room to focus on emotional intelligence, coaching, and support—the kind of people management skills that move the needle for everyone.

What managers can do right now

In amongst all this organizational noise, all too often “the people side of things drops,” Andrew warns. But you can’t just sit back and wait for change. Here is how to take control:

• Replace proximity with process: With teams scattered across offices and time zones, connection no longer grows organically. You must cultivate it deliberately through structured 1:1s and regular check-ins.

• Stop trying to spin every plate: Managers are like human power banks. It’s no shock they’re 36% more likely to report burnout. When your battery runs low, switch to power-saving mode. Pick your weekly "Big Three" priorities and identify what can go into sleep mode.

• Let AI analyze, while you coach: AI can’t replace human connection, but it can clear space for it. Spend less time analyzing data and more time using it to lift your team's capability. An algorithm won't spot the hesitation in someone's voice—only you can do that.

A feast of development

It all comes down to developing the “skills to manage the complexity that is the modern organization,” Andrew believes.

Simply dishing up one-size-fits-none training won’t cut it. Andrew suggests “the ultimate buffet of development” instead: coaching, peer circles, prioritization tools, and wellbeing support.

Because unless we surround managers with what they truly need, we’ll just keep asking them to spin more plates... and then act surprised when one falls.