Nearly one-half of your workforce believes managers don’t truly understand their behavioral strengths and contributions. That’s the stark finding from our recent survey of 1,000 employees, where 46% said their boss only somewhat or rarely grasps what they uniquely bring to the table.

When employees feel fundamentally misunderstood by their managers, it creates a cascade of problems that directly impact your bottom line. Performance drops, innovation stalls, and your best people start updating their résumés. Case in point: 44% of workers in our survey report being overlooked for raises, promotions or key projects because someone misinterpreted their skills or work style.

The solution to closing the perception gap isn’t another generic leadership workshop or communication seminar. Managers need behavioral literacy — the ability to objectively understand how their people are naturally wired to work, communicate and contribute. And that starts with training them to use behavioral insights effectively.

Why Traditional Leadership Training Misses the Mark

Here’s the problem: Most leadership development programs focus on one-size-fits-all approaches — cookie-cutter communication techniques, standard feedback models and generic motivational strategies. While well-intentioned, any single-flavor approach ignores that people have unique needs. What energizes one employee might overwhelm another. What feels like clear direction to one team member might feel like micromanaging to someone else.

Without objective insights into how their people naturally operate, managers default to assumptions and personal biases. They view and evaluate team members through their own lens, missing critical strengths that don’t mirror their own work style. A big-picture manager might undervalue a detail-oriented employee’s precise contributions. A fast-paced leader might mistake a methodical employee’s thoroughness for a lack of urgency. The end result is poor quality, damage control and mounting frustration.

A lack of behavioral literacy fuels the perception problem, which is hitting younger workers especially hard. Gen Z employees, who will represent 30% of the workforce by 2030, report being misunderstood at significantly higher rates, with 54% saying manager feedback feels inaccurate or misaligned with their self-perception. Separately, 62% report being passed over for opportunities due to misperceptions about their capabilities.

When these misunderstood employees eventually leave, organizations pay a major price. Replacement costs can range from one-half to four times an employee’s annual salary, meaning an employee with a salary of $60,000 annually could cost up to $180,000 to replace. We’re jeopardizing our entire leadership pipeline and hemorrhaging money in the process.

Ditch the Guesswork — the Solution Is In Your Data

Behavioral insights can unlock a goldmine in the form of greater self-awareness and appreciation. A manager who often treats tasks with urgency and is a quick decision-maker can finally understand why they’ve been frustrated with that employee who always asks detailed questions before moving forward. Rather than see them as being difficult, they can recognize how that employee is exhibiting a strength that prevents costly mistakes.

Behavioral data reveals patterns managers can’t see on their own. When a detail-oriented leader consistently rates big-picture thinkers as “unfocused” or when a relationship-focused manager views task-oriented employees as “cold,” assessment results provide objective evidence of these perceptual gaps.

Ditching subjective judgment for behavioral science creates a foundation for more effective management. The ensuing insights help managers better understand their teams and themselves, especially how their own behavioral drives might be creating the very perception gaps they’re trying to solve.

Perhaps most telling, the workforce itself sees the potential. Research shows that 80% of Gen Z employees believe behavioral assessments would help them and their teams better understand their strengths and work styles.

From Data to Action: Training Managers to Use Behavioral Insights

Simply having the data isn’t enough to make any lasting change, however. Managers need structured training to translate insights into daily leadership practices.

The key training components that drive lasting change include:

• Building self-awareness: Effective training begins with managers completing their own behavioral assessment and working with a facilitator to understand their results. Through guided reflection, they identify their natural management tendencies and recognize situations where their default style might be creating friction with certain team members.
• Developing behavioral literacy: Managers learn to systematically review and interpret their team members’ assessment results, moving beyond surface-level observations to understand the underlying drivers behind different work styles. This skill helps them distinguish between actual performance issues and differing behavioral preferences.
• Practicing adaptive leadership: Training programs use real workplace scenarios to help managers practice modifying their approach for different behavioral types. Rather than learning entirely new management techniques, they discover how to adjust their existing communication methods, meeting structures and feedback delivery to match their team’s diverse needs.

When managers consistently apply these behavioral insights — checking their assumptions, adapting their communication, and leveraging each person’s natural strengths — the perception gap starts to close. The number of employees who feel misunderstood begins to shrink, and organizations can finally unlock the full potential of their workforce.