One of the hallmarks of good company culture is a sense of togetherness - whether it’s feeling like you have a stake in the work you’re doing, or trusting those at the top to steer the ship well. However, the last few years have shown an increase in unpopular leadership decisions: return to work (RTO) mandates, layoffs, even imperfect AI rollout. Has that affected the average full-time employee’s attitude towards their bosses?
To understand how workers really see their leadership, we surveyed 1,002 full-time U.S. employees about how they feel about the people running their companies.
Employees trust their leaders, but think they’re living a different reality
On the surface, the relationship looks healthy: 79% of employees say they like their leadership and 74% say they trust it. However, high stated trust sits on top of deep reservations about how leaders actually behave.
More than half — 54% — say company leadership lives in a different world than they do. Six in ten (60%) say their leaders don't work as hard as they do. Another 42% say founders and CEOs are held to a lower standard of behavior than a typical employee, and 24% say leadership doesn't even follow its own policies around PTO, working in the office, or basic professionalism. Nearly a third (31%) go a step further and say they could do a better job running the company than the people currently doing it. And 28% say leadership doesn't value its employees at all.
Top factors in employee distrust
We analyzed a few different factors in our employees: seniority level, tenure at a company, and overall company size to see if there were any trends. There were: the overall sense that leadership lives in a different world grows with distance from the top as well as with the size of the company.
By role, the divide is stark. Two-thirds of solo contributors (67%) say leadership lives in a different world, versus 44% of managers and just 8% of the C-suite. The further you sit from the decisions, the wider the gap looks.
Company size widens it further. Only 30% of employees at small companies (11–25 people) feel that distance, rising to 52% at mid-size firms (101–500), 57% at larger ones (501–1,000), and 75% at enterprises with 5,000 or more employees. As organizations scale, leadership gets further away, and this creates problems in trying to bridge distance as leaders – as evidenced by employee sentiment.
By sector, the spread is just as wide. Government workers feel the distance most (86%), followed by finance (57%), tech (54%), and health (53%). Construction employees feel it least, at 25%.
How to build employee trust (How to burn it, too)
Even if there’s a sense that leadership lives in different worlds, this isn’t always a bad thing for workers. Most employees still think their company is well run — 76% say so. Among them, the strengths are business strategy (57%), company culture (54%), growth (48%), internal communications (41%), and HR practices and policies (40%).
Among the 24% who say their company isn't run well, the complaints invert that order: HR practices and policies (62%) and company culture (62%) top the list of what’s being done wrong, followed by business strategy (46%), budgeting (36%), and growth (24%). In other words, employees will credit leadership for direction and vision, but the trust breaks down if employees feel they’re not treated well.
There's a longer-term worry underneath, too. Only 40% believe their leaders prioritize the company's long-term wellbeing over short-term profits. And 38% are concerned that leadership's decisions could actually kill the company — with 15% expecting that within two years. Over 3 in 5 are considering leaving due to their leadership.
Communication breakdown: 1 in 6 say leadership has made a decision they don’t understand 5+ times in 2026
In the last year, 22% of workers had AI usage mandated by their employer, 22% saw their company pivot its product offering to include AI, and 10% say their company pivoted to being an AI company outright. Another 13% were nearshored or offshored around, 10% got a return-to-office mandate, and 1 in 4 saw their leadership change entirely.
The cumulative effect of all these major changes is a workforce that feels out of the loop. Nearly three-quarters (72%) say leadership made at least one decision in the past year that made no sense to them, and 16% counted five or more. Most tellingly, 68% feel they have no say in how their company is run at all.
When employees see AI mandates and return-to-office rules arrive together, many read them the same way — as cost-cutting by another name. (For more on how workers view these tools, see our AI trust survey and our look at AI in the workplace.)
Layoffs and loyalty
No decision tests trust like a layoff — and employees are skeptical of the reasons they're given. Just over a quarter (27%) went through layoffs at their company in the past year, and their read on them is unforgiving.
Of those who experienced layoffs, 43% say the cuts were not made to ensure the company's survival and 80% say they would rather see leadership take a pay cut than lay off employees at all. The message is clear: employees will accept hard decisions made out of genuine necessity, but not ones they see as leaders protecting themselves first.
How leaders can close the trust gap
Almost all of the issues at heart in this survey can be addressed in some way by examining communication strategy. The data points to three levers.
None of this works without retention to build on, and retention is where trust compounds. Keeping teams stable, supported, and aligned across time zones is exactly the problem Howdy is built to solve — helping companies hire and hold onto top talent rather than churn through it. If leadership trust is showing up as turnover on your team, book a demo to see how it works.
Methodology and fair use
In July 2026 we surveyed 1,004 full-time US employees about their company's leadership. Ages ranged from 19-70 with an average age of 40; 49% were men, 50% women, and 1% either nonbinary or undisclosed.
For media inquiries, contact media@digitalthirdcoast.net.
When using this data, please attribute by linking to this study and citing Howdy.com.
