(Van Daele & Associates Inc.) -- Businesses do a poor job picking managers to lead their employees, collectively costing companies billions of dollars each year, according to the recent Gallup report “State of the American Manager.”

The report is based on more than “four decades of extensive talent research, a study of 2.5 million manager-led teams in 195 countries, and analysis from measuring the engagement of 27 million employees,” according to Gallup.

The research yields a striking failure rate—82 percent—when it comes to how well companies select their managers.

“On the plus side, with such an abysmal success rate in hiring managers, we can reasonably expect improvement in the workforce,” says Debora McLaughlin, CEO of The Renegade Leader Coaching and Consulting Group, and author of Running in High Heels: How to Lead with Influence, Impact & Ingenuity (Balboa Press, 2014).

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