When Gallup studied leaders and followers across 52 countries, they uncovered something timeless: no matter the culture or context, people everywhere want the same four things from their leaders: hope, trust, compassion, and stability. These aren’t trends, they’re distinctly human needs. Fast-forward to today’s workplaces, transformed by hybrid models, relentless change, and the rise of AI. The landscape looks different, but those four emotional anchors remain the same. What’s shifting isn’t what people need, it’s how consistently they’re getting it.
At TalentSmartEQ, we recently conducted a new representative study of over 1,000 U.S. professionals to explore how well today’s leaders are delivering on these four enduring needs. Preliminary results were slightly sobering: Leaders believe they are offering hope, trust, compassion, and stability in abundance; employees, on the other hand, report experiencing far less of all four.
What Leaders Believe vs. What Employees Experience
We asked leaders to rate themselves on four statements aligned with Gallup’s framework and asked employees to rate their leaders on the same items.
| Leadership Need | Leader Mean | Employee Mean | Gap |
| Hope | 4.36 | 3.39 | 0.96 |
| Trust | 4.53 | 3.63 | 0.90 |
| Compassion | 4.48 | 3.34 | 1.13 |
| Stability | 4.42 | 3.59 | 0.82 |
Across every dimension, leaders rate themselves nearly a full point higher than employees rate them, and these differences are statistically significant across all four items. In the world of perception data, that’s not a small gap; it’s a gulf.
Take compassion, for example. Sixty-four percent of leaders “strongly agree” that they demonstrate care for their employees. Yet just 19 percent of employees say they “strongly agree” that their leader cares for them. Similar divides appear across hope, trust, and stability.
Leaders see themselves as transparent, encouraging, and safe to approach; employees, in large numbers, experience something more muted, cautious, and uncertain.
This disconnect reflects one of the oldest and most persistent challenges in leadership: the self-awareness gap. Most leaders genuinely want to inspire and support their people, but intention and impact don’t always align. Emotional intelligence is what helps close that gap.
Hope: Clear Direction, Real Optimism
Hope is not blind positivity. It’s clarity about where we’re headed and confidence that we can get there together.
More than half of the leaders in our study said they “strongly agree” that they provide clear direction. But employees were far less certain. Many said they “somewhat agree,” suggesting that while direction may be present, the emotional tone behind it doesn’t always inspire hope.
Hope is felt when people see a future they can picture themselves in. That means translating strategy into meaning: Why this goal matters, how it connects to purpose, and what progress looks like. Leaders who slow down to connect the dots, especially during ambiguity, spark motivation that lasts far longer than any single speech or slide deck.
Trust: Integrity as a Daily Practice
Trust is built in moments that often go unnoticed. It’s built when leaders follow through, when they tell the truth even when it’s uncomfortable, and when they treat people with respect under pressure.
Leaders overwhelmingly believe they model integrity, two-thirds “strongly agree” that they do. Yet fewer than one in three employees said the same about their leader. This doesn’t necessarily mean leaders are untrustworthy, it means trust is rarely felt through intention alone.
Trust is experienced in how leaders respond when things go wrong. When leaders over-promise or go silent in uncertainty, employees begin to fill in the blanks. A simple “Here’s what we know, and here’s what we don’t yet know” does more for trust than polished reassurance ever will.
Compassion: Care You Can Actually Feel
Compassion is the leadership trait most leaders believe they show, and least consistently felt. It’s not a lack of caring, it’s that care often doesn’t register if it isn’t visible.
Leaders genuinely want to support their teams. They ask how people are doing, they celebrate wins, they mean well. But employees experience compassion when leaders take time to listen, when they show curiosity, and when they remember details that matter to people’s lives.
Modern work makes this harder. Time is scarce, hybrid setups create distance, and change fatigue is real. Yet compassion doesn’t require grand gestures, it starts with noticing. The micro-moments when leaders look up from their screens, make eye contact, and listen without multitasking, those are the moments that tell someone they matter.
Stability: Psychological Safety in Motion
Stability isn’t the absence of change; it’s the feeling of safety within change.
In our data, leaders rate themselves high on creating environments where people can ask questions, take risks, and share ideas. Employees, again, see less of that safety in practice. Many leaders equate stability with control, tight timelines, detailed plans, and fixed communication. But true stability is psychological, not procedural.
When employees feel safe to disagree, raise concerns, and bring unpolished ideas forward, innovation and engagement flourish. This is what Harvard’s Amy Edmondson calls “psychological safety,” and it’s deeply tied to emotional intelligence. Leaders who model curiosity and humility send a powerful signal: It’s okay not to have all the answers here.
Why These Four Needs Still Matter
Gallup’s global work showed that these four follower needs predict not only engagement, but also organizational resilience and performance. Hope drives motivation. Trust fuels commitment. Compassion builds loyalty. Stability creates focus.
In today’s volatile, AI-accelerated workplace, these needs aren’t outdated, they’re amplified. The more technology transforms what we do, the more humanity matters in how we do it. The paradox of modern leadership is that as data and automation scale up, emotional connection becomes the rarest and most valuable differentiator.
At TalentSmartEQ, we see this truth every day in our work with leaders and teams. The most effective leaders aren’t the ones who only talk most about strategy or innovation. They’re the ones who consistently meet these four needs in small, steady ways.
From Awareness to Action
So how do we close the gap between leaders’ intentions and employees’ experiences? The answer begins with emotional intelligence.
Self-awareness allows leaders to recognize how their behavior lands. Empathy allows them to understand how it feels on the receiving end. Self-management and relationship management enable them to adjust, turning insight into impact.
Closing this leadership gap doesn’t require new buzzwords or complex models. It requires reimagining leadership development around these enduring human needs. That means teaching leaders not only to knowthe four needs of followers, but to demonstrate them—daily, visibly, and authentically.
Traditional leadership programs tend to over-index on strategy and communication. The next generation must integrate emotional intelligence at the core. We must help leaders practice hope as clear direction, trust as honesty in motion, compassion as curiosity, and stability as safety in change.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- Hope: End every major meeting by clearly restating where the team is headed and what progress has been made toward that goal. Clarity builds confidence, and confidence fuels hope.
- Trust: When you make a commitment—no matter how small—follow through exactly as promised, or name it transparently if something changes. Reliability is the quiet currency of trust.
- Compassion: Replace “How are you?” with “What’s something that’s been on your mind this week?” Then pause long enough to truly listen. Compassion lives in presence, not pleasantries.
- Stability: In moments of change, share what will not change. Even one steady anchor, values, purpose, or priority, helps people feel grounded when everything else feels in motion.
Small shifts like these compound quickly. They’re how leadership becomes felt, not just stated, and how the gap between intention and impact begins to close.
Development should mirror reality: real conversations, real feedback, real reflection. One of the simplest, most powerful exercises we use is asking leaders to compare their self-perception with how their teams experience them. The insight that follows is often transformative.
When leaders discover that their intention to “be caring” isn’t landing as care—or that their “clear communication” feels confusing to others—they begin to close the perception gap. That’s where growth starts.