Hey, it's Dr. Bailey

I have been thinking a lot about the people in the middle lately. The ones translating strategy into action, absorbing pressure from above and below, and quietly wondering when someone is going to check on them. If that sounds familiar, this edition is for you.

What is one thing you wish your organization did to support the people in the middle? Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

ONGOING: OpenStudio by SkillsCamp Events for people leaders who want practical tools and space to think with peers. Each session takes a timely leadership challenge and works through it with real-world examples and strategies you can use right away.

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I was recently invited on to CBC to talk about something I hear constantly in my work with leaders across the country: when people hear that AI will create new jobs, most do not feel those jobs will be relevant to them (myself included!)

In the interview with Deana Sumanac-Johnson, we explored AI-related anxiety and the growing gap between technological readiness and human readiness. The headlines keep telling us that AI will generate millions of new roles. The people I meet in workshops and boardrooms keep telling me they do not see themselves in that future. That disconnect is where a real problem lives.

What it means for us as people leaders:

Name the anxiety out loud.
Most of your team members will not tell you they are worried about AI replacing them. They will just get quieter, more resistant, or more exhausted. Creating space to talk about AI fears openly is the first step toward building genuine human readiness.

Close the readiness gap from the inside.
The gap is rarely about whether your people can learn the tools. It is about whether they feel psychologically prepared to step into a future that keeps being described in terms that do not include them or relate tothem. That is a leadership problem, and it is one we can address right now.

Watch the full CBC interview

A reader writes: "My team gets along really well and they genuinely like each other. But when it comes to giving honest feedback on work quality or missed deadlines, everyone goes quiet. I do not want to be the only person giving constructive input. How do I build a feedback culture without breaking the trust we already have?"

I love this question because it names something I see all the time: teams that confuse closeness with honesty. They care about each other so much that they protect each other from the truth. And that protection, over time, becomes a ceiling on how good the work can get.

Separate feedback from conflict.
Many teams treat them as the same thing. They are not. Feedback is information. Conflict is a breakdown in the relationship. When you frame feedback as care for the work and the person, it stops feeling like an attack and starts feeling like investment.

Build structured moments for it.
Feedback is harder when it only happens spontaneously. Create regular, predictable spaces where giving input is expected. A quick round of "one thing that went well, one thing to adjust" at the end of a project review normalises the habit without making anyone feel singled out.

Model it yourself, loudly.
Ask your team to tell you one thing you could do differently this week. When your people see you receive feedback with gratitude and action, you make it safe for everyone else to do the same. Permission travels downward.

Love you!

Gallup just released its 2026 State of the Global Workplace report and the headline that stopped me: manager engagement has dropped 9 points since 2022. In 2025, only 22% of managers worldwide were engaged at work. That is the sharpest decline of any group in the workforce.

At the same time, global employee engagement fell to 20%. Gallup estimates low engagement is costing the world economy roughly $10 trillion in lost productivity. The numbers are staggering, and the pattern is clear: the people we are counting on to hold our teams together are themselves running on empty.

What stood out to me from the research:

Managers carry more stress than anyone.
Gallup found that managers report higher stress (+7 percentage points), anger (+12), sadness (+11), and loneliness (+10) compared to individual contributors. They are the most invested and the most depleted at the same time.

Best-practice organizations prove this is solvable.
Companies that prioritize engagement as a core business strategy recorded 79% manager engagement, nearly four times the global average. The gap between average and excellent is enormous, which means the upside of investing in your managers is enormous too.

We cannot build engaged teams on top of disengaged managers. If your people strategy does not start with the people leading your people, this data is asking you to rethink that.

Read the full Gallup report

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