When team members disengage, most leaders instinctively tighten the reins. It’s an understandable response, but rarely an effective one. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 report found that 70% of the variance in team engagement stems directly from the manager.

How we respond to disengagement doesn’t affect just one person; it shapes the engagement of everyone around them. Research on Threat Rigidity Theory helps explain the instinct to assert control. When we perceive a threat, whether that’s pressure to deliver, resistance to change, or risk of failure, we naturally narrow our focus and become more directive.

Sam was head of retail operations, with six area managers reporting to her. The business was in deep transformation: new systems, new targets, and new ways of working rolling out almost every month. Most of her team were finding their footing in it, except for one member. In team meetings, he’d challenged nearly every change, not by asking questions like some of her more engaged leaders did, but by undercutting it before it had a chance. Sam noticed the eye-rolling and the cutting remarks about head office. He’d respond to a new initiative announcement with heavy silence, and speak about the company’s direction with a kind of weary sarcasm.

He hit his targets. But he’d stopped doing anything beyond them. He used to flag problems before they became problems, push back on Sam directly when something didn’t make sense, and put his hand up for the harder rollouts. Now he did exactly what he was asked to do and no more.

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