Wake-up call for sleepless CEOs

“ARE CEOs too complacent about employee discontent?”

That’s one question posed in a new Boston Consulting Group (BCG) report titled CEO Insomnia Index: What (and Who) Is Keeping CEOs Up at Night.

It found that just a minority of CEOs surveyed – 29 per cent and 9 per cent – were “concerned” and “very concerned”, respectively, about rising employee disgruntlement.

Of the remaining respondents, 20 per cent were “not concerned” and 42 per cent were only “somewhat concerned”.

The report explained why this nonchalance is a problem hiding in plain sight. “When a company’s employee net entry rate drops by 10 per cent, the likelihood of a CEO exit rises by 12 per cent… Rising levels of employee disgruntlement, left unaddressed, can fuel attrition.”

In other words, when employees are leaving at a faster rate than new ones are joining, CEOs are also more likely to exit.

It doesn’t take a consultant to see the logic: you can’t steer a boat when the crew isn’t rowing. For a leader, ignoring the grumpy legions in the hallways is a threat to their own tenure.

To arrive at these correlations, the index combined data from a survey of some 500 CEOs and data from BCG’s CEO Job Security Model, which tracks five years of turnover data across the S&P 1200.

Top stressors

While the top stressors keeping CEOs awake are “meeting growth targets” (with a stress score of 73.8 out of 100), followed by “managing costs” (64), the study also suggested CEOs are increasingly caught between conflicting stakeholder demands.

A leader reportedly wrote: “A good CEO cares about the people first… I preach that and live that. But the board doesn’t. I find myself forced into impossible situations, where I am forced to contradict my own messaging and let down my people to meet the unrealistic demands of those not involved in the day-to-day.”

Middle managers will surely relate to the sentiment.

The report nudged CEOs to better understand on-the-ground sentiment through small-group listening sessions and town hall meetings, where employees are empowered to ask anything.

“If someone asks a question that doesn’t seem to warrant CEO attention, such as why prices were raised in the cafeteria, answering it won’t hurt. It signals transparency,” said Judith Wallenstein, global head of BCG’s CEO Advisory.

This goes beyond office optics. Global data bolstered the case for paying more attention to the rank and file.

Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 report flagged that global employee engagement fell to 20 per cent in 2025, its lowest level since 2020, costing the world economy an estimated US$10 trillion in lost productivity.

By contrast, organisations with highly engaged employees see 78 per cent lower absenteeism, 18 per cent higher productivity and 23 per cent higher profitability – metrics that directly affect stressors one and two (growth and cost).

To every leader losing sleep over the bottom line, the findings highlighted a need to look beyond financial metrics to identify and mitigate longer-term risks.

At a time when AI-driven job displacement and rising costs of living fuel anxiety, these findings offer an apt wake-up call. Employee discontent isn’t just a “soft” metric; addressing it affects a leader’s own stress levels and overall organisational health.

SAS Institute’s CEO Jim Goodnight, known for pioneering employee-centric policies such as a 35-hour work week, might have said it best: “Treat employees like they make a difference and they will.”