Managing Up: People Don’t Leave Their Job, They Leave Their Managers!

It’s a familiar phrase, and it holds a troubling truth.

Studies consistently show that poor relationships with direct managers are one of the leading reasons employees quit. Gallup found that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement, and a DDI study revealed that 57% of employees have left a job because of their boss. That’s a majority. And yet, the systems in place, especially for resolving disputes between employees and their managers, are still falling short.

Just to disclose; this isn’t abstract for me. I left my first real job due to an unresolved spat with my manager. There was no fair process to address it, and it cost us both and the organization. That experience, contributed in part to what I’m building today.

“Managing up” sounds good in theory, but in practice, it’s risky. Power dynamics make it difficult for team members to raise concerns without fear of retaliation or career damage. HR processes can feel biased or inaccessible, particularly when leadership is more focused on risk than resolution.

That’s where a toolkit like SpatzAI offers a new path. It provides a structured, transparent 3-step escalation process, starting with a verbal caution, then escalating through the Spatz Chat app when necessary, helping to document any disputes. If the conflict still isn’t resolved fairly by both parties, it moves to the Spatz Team-and-AI Review platform as a last resort.

Here’s the game-changer: at this point, everyone in the team can contribute to the resolution process, not just management. When a conflict reaches the final review, the team (not just the leaders) assesses what happened, guided by an independent AI and the data from the Spatz Chat app. This helps rebalance power, increase transparency, and hold everyone, managers included, to the same behavioral standards.

And for those worried about mobbing, malicious gossip, or team misbehavior during this final review process, we believe that those issues arise more from opaque systems, rather than from structured, open ones like SpatzAI.

In a world dogged by team spats and unresolved micro-conflicts but demanding more accountability and psychological safety, maybe it’s time to try something radically new. SpatzAI.com