Your Manager Is the AI Strategy

Companies are spending millions on AI strategy, governance frameworks, and culture programs. Gallup just told us none of it matters as much as what your middle managers do on Tuesday morning.

The Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026 buried a number I can't stop thinking about: employees whose managers actively support AI use are 8.7 times more likely to say AI has transformed their work. Not 8.7% more likely. Eight point seven times. That is a multiplier, and we have been saying it all along at Improving: people's use of AI is directly correlated to their upline manager's own use of AI. If the manager is not in it, most of the team will not be either (yes, we do see AI Enthusiasts who are in there regardless, but they're a small percentage of the teams).

Meanwhile, manager engagement has declined at nearly three times the rate of employee engagement over the past three years. McKinsey's State of Organizations 2026 found that 86% of executives feel their organization is not properly prepared to embed AI into daily operations. Only 25% of the workforce uses AI regularly, even though 86% of CEOs say their employees already have the skills. The gap isn't at the top, and it isn't on the floor. It is in the middle. And that disconnect is important.

Most AI adoption programs are designed to solve a tool problem: training rollouts, prompt libraries, use case catalogs, etc. But the Gallup data says the problem is a management-layer problem. The tool is available. The permission structure, think psychological safety à la Project Aristotle from Google, around it is not. Middle managers are absorbing organizational change faster than anyone, with the least support, and are being asked to champion a technology shift they haven't been given time to understand and explore for themselves. Fifty percent of CHROs admit they are not very confident in their managers' ability to guide employees on AI use. That is a leadership failure, not a training failure.

If the manager is the 8.7x multiplier, the AI strategy conversation belongs in manager development, not in IT. When you look at your AI adoption program, where does the manager layer show up? If the answer is "it doesn't," that is where the work is.