Senior executives in a boardroom bubble

Board level directors in the UK are out of touch with their staff and living in a 'boardroom bubble', according to new research from the leadership institute, Roffey Park.

The annual Management Agenda report, a survey of over 1,500 managers has found that while senior managers tend to be more positive and optimistic about the future than other managers in their organisations, they are also wearing rose-tinted spectacles when it comes to the impact on staff of restructuring and downsizing.

The research found that while more than eight out of 10 board directors feel redundancies within their organisations have been handled well or very well, that view is shared by fewer than half (44 per cent) of their more junior managers.

It also suggested that senior executives tend to feel more positive about their organisation's leadership, more secure in their jobs, more confident of finding work elsewhere and more certain of still progressing their careers than their more junior colleagues - not to mention being happier with their work-life balance and feeling less stressed.

Jo Hennessy, Director of Research at Roffey Park, said that the findings highlighted the dangers of senior executives becoming insulated from the real concerns facing their employees.

"The Management Agenda 2011 findings suggest many senior executives are living in their own world, which has a distinctly rosy hue, for their positive view is out of sync with the concerns and challenges of managers reported by managers beneath them," she said.