Why do employees leave managers who understand them?

Because perception is what counts: employees leave managers who cannot make them feel understood, even when the manager genuinely does understand them. If the employee does not perceive it, the understanding does not register. Every toxic environment shares the same absence, people who do not feel known, understood, cared for, or safe.

How can I make my employees feel understood?

Give personalized attention across their whole life, not just their output. Get to know their personal lives and show tangible care for their well-being, ask for the problems they see, ask for their opinions and solutions, encourage their problem-solving with supervised autonomy, run 90-day reviews asking about their happiness and why they stay, curate their career toward where they want to go, and share performance metrics openly so they can self-adjust. When correcting someone, ask questions that help them manage themselves first instead of jumping in punitively.

What do employers owe employees in return for sacrifice?

A corresponding sacrifice for the good of the employee's family. Too many employers feel entitled to employee sacrifice without feeling any responsibility running the other way, and that imbalance corrodes the relationship. Loyalty should beget loyalty.

Employees Crave Understanding · Ambassador Group

In this piece

1.HOW DO YOU RETAIN VALUABLE TEAM MEMBERS?
2.WAYS & MEANS OF COMMUNICATING UNDERSTANDING

About the author

TJ Kastning

Founder & Managing Partner

TJ founded Ambassador Group after years recruiting for construction organizations, watching misaligned leadership decisions cost projects, margin, and morale. He believes hiring is a deep leadership discipline, not just a transactional function. It shapes culture, capacity, and long-term outcomes. His work with clients focuses on clarifying expectations, surfacing assumptions, and helping leaders think more clearly about the environments they are creating. TJ is involved in every search as guide and thought partner.

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HOW DO YOU RETAIN VALUABLE TEAM MEMBERS?

I write this sitting at Coeur d’Alene Coffee, a local cafe known for friendliness. They know everyone’s name and consequently people always smile when they enter and they have a loyal contingent. Employees need the same personalized attention to feel known, to feel cared for, understood, and to feel safe.

This is not tawdry advice. Consider every toxic environment you have seen; did people feel known, understood, cared for, and safe?

Employees leave managers who can’t make them feel understood. It doesn’t matter if the manager actually understands them, they likely do, but if the employee does not perceive to be understood, it doesn’t matter.

WAYS & MEANS OF COMMUNICATING UNDERSTANDING

Get to know the personal lives of your employees and demonstrate tangible care for their professional and personal well being.
Ask for problems they see.
Ask for their opinions and solutions to problems.
Encourage their efforts at problem solving. Help them take responsibility for problems and build their confidence and courage by giving them autonomy to solve them, with supervision (help).
Conduct 90 day reviews where you ask questions about their happiness with their job, advice for you, why they stay, and what they may want to change about their job.
Curate their professional career for their benefit. Where do they want to go? Help them get there.
As you expect them to sacrifice for the good of the business, expect yourself to sacrifice for the good of their family. Too many employers feel entitled to employee sacrifice without feeling a corresponding responsibility. Loyalty should begat loyalty.
When correcting someone, help them correct (manage) themselves first by asking questions instead of jumping on them punitively. Self-managing people and teams are scalable, micromanaging is not.
Show care for their professional performance by tracking key metrics and make those metrics available at any time to them so they can self-adjust to maintain performance.

Unequivocally the best companies are composed of the best teams which are managed by the best managers. It does NOT mean they have all the top performers. Teamwork is more important than individual contribution. Making employees feel understood is an excellent step towards building a culture of teamwork.

Questions, answered

The short version.

Why do employees leave managers who understand them?: Because perception is what counts: employees leave managers who cannot make them feel understood, even when the manager genuinely does understand them. If the employee does not perceive it, the understanding does not register. Every toxic environment shares the same absence, people who do not feel known, understood, cared for, or safe.
How can I make my employees feel understood?: Give personalized attention across their whole life, not just their output. Get to know their personal lives and show tangible care for their well-being, ask for the problems they see, ask for their opinions and solutions, encourage their problem-solving with supervised autonomy, run 90-day reviews asking about their happiness and why they stay, curate their career toward where they want to go, and share performance metrics openly so they can self-adjust. When correcting someone, ask questions that help them manage themselves first instead of jumping in punitively.
What do employers owe employees in return for sacrifice?: A corresponding sacrifice for the good of the employee's family. Too many employers feel entitled to employee sacrifice without feeling any responsibility running the other way, and that imbalance corrodes the relationship. Loyalty should beget loyalty.
Do the best companies have the most top performers?: No. The best companies are composed of the best teams managed by the best managers, and teamwork matters more than individual contribution. Making employees feel understood is an excellent step toward building that culture of teamwork, and self-managing people and teams are scalable in a way micromanaging never is.