The Humanity Practice Weekly: Manager Moments Matter
Published 9 days ago • 3 min read
The Humanity Practice Weekly: Manager Moments Matter
Managers are the heartbeat of our organizations. When they lead with values-aligned authenticity, they are the ultimate humanity practitioners — the people who make culture real in the everyday moments that matter most.
But what happens when they're depleted? When we've loaded them with more than they can carry and given them nothing to work with?
This week I've been thinking about what it actually looks like when a manager shows up fully. And what it costs to our human-centered cultures when we don't protect their capacity to do that.
Mark Putrusdidn't wait for belonging to be built. He modeled it. Mark leads workforce strategy at Life360 — a platform built for modern, blended families. This Pride Month he wrote about what it means to parent without a fixed formula, and connected it directly to how his team builds products. When the person shaping your workforce strategy shows up that fully, he's not just sharing a personal story. He's creating the conditions where everyone else feels safe to bring their full selves too. That is a manager moment. Not a policy. Not a program. A leader who went first. Mark earned his spot as this week's humanity practitioner.
Last week I got last minute notice of a family gathering — the kind you don't want to miss. I asked my manager, Michelle D. Sims if I could tap out after our 1:1 at 1pm so I could hit the road before traffic. She said yes. Then that night, without me asking again, she sent a note. "You've earned a day off. Take the whole day. I'm moving our one-on-one."
No program. No YUPRO Placement policy. A note. From a manager who was paying attention.
That is a manager moment. It cost her fifteen minutes and a calendar reschedule. What it gave me was the felt sense that my manager actually sees me — not just my output.
Your managers are either creating those moments or they're not. But before you ask why — ask yourself this: do your managers even have the space to notice what matters to the people on their team?
Half your team thinks their work is "just" admin. This is the practice that changes that. When people can't see why their work matters, they stop bringing their best. They feel invisible. Underappreciated. Like what they do doesn't move anything that matters. The practice: stop mid-project and name it. "It's not just a clean-up project. It's fundamental to how we operate." That reframe costs nothing. It changes everything about how someone shows up the next day. Pick the most "boring" task on your team right now. Do the people doing it know what it actually protects? Tell them. Out loud. That's a manager moment.
Whiteboard explaining how to explain the meaning of work to your team
Manager engagement just fell from 27% to 22% in a single year — the largest year-over-year drop Gallup has recorded. And managers drive 70% of the variance in their team's engagement. The humans most responsible for creating the moments that matter are the role burning out fastest. We loaded them with more reports, more change, and more emotional labor. Then cut the training, the peer support, and the time to actually manage. We gave them no practices and then measured their teams.
The data isn't a surprise. It's a consequence. And it's exactly what we're building against. The Humanity Practice is a system that helps organizations assess, build, and sustain the human-centered behaviors that make manager moments possible — before depletion becomes the norm. Learn more →
June is Pride Month — and one of the most common manager moments people avoid is using someone's pronouns correctly. Not because they don't care. Because they're afraid of getting it wrong. Because they think of it politically and not from a business communication, common respect perspective.
The Pronouns at Work Builder kit gives your managers a structured practice for exactly that moment — how to use pronouns respectfully, and how to recover cleanly when you slip. Not a training. A repeatable behavior they can actually use.