The report in eight numbers
nearly 3,500
Managers through JBL engagements
30+
Organisations across 10+ countries
~4 hrs
Reclaimed per manager, every week
40%
More decisions made at the right level
15%
Fewer escalations to senior leaders
8.75/10
Line managers who would sponsor again
92.5%
Recommend rate
4.92/5
Average programme rating
01What removing friction returns
Good people, held back by friction
Across JBL High Performance engagements with nearly 3,500 managers in more than 30 organisations, removing friction gave each manager back around four hours a week and moved 40% more decisions to the right level.
Those hours were already being lost before the work started: to escalations that didn't need to travel, rework and meetings that clarified nothing. Escalations fell by 15%, and the change was confirmed by the managers' own line managers, who scored the work 8.75/10 for whether they'd sponsor it again.
Friction is rarely a people problem. JBL's work with mid-market businesses keeps finding capable managers stuck in the weeds because decision rights are unclear, priorities multiply and work flows upwards by default. You can see how that plays out in the JBL case studies.
02The JBL Friction Index
Where friction concentrates
The JBL Friction Index scores five dimensions of the leadership layer out of 100, where lower means more friction. The 2026 read from the JBL Friction Finder puts leadership bandwidth at the top of the list, with an average overall score of 37.6 out of 100.
Senior people are absorbing work that should sit with their teams. This is where capacity disappears first.
Messages are sent but not landing. Teams interpret rather than execute.
The strategy exists, but the people making daily decisions can't connect their work to it.
Teams wait for permission instead of acting. Decision rights haven't been handed down.
The strongest dimension, and still short of the point where decisions flow without bottlenecks.
03Leader profiles
Most friction is quiet, not catastrophic
More than three quarters of leaders in the 2026 Friction Finder read sit in the Icebreaker or Moderate Friction profiles. The friction isn't breaking the business. It's draining capacity, time and decision quality every week, which is why it so often goes unaddressed.
Doing well, with specific patterns holding the team back.
Friction is measurable and costing time, but not yet structural.
Friction is embedded in how the team operates.
Already multiplying capacity across the team.
04What to do about it
See it, solve it, scale it
These findings map directly onto Simplify to Amplify, the method JBL uses to find and remove friction.
SEE
Find the friction
Leadership Bandwidth is the first place to look. Map where your managers' week actually goes and which decisions keep travelling upwards.
SOLVE
Remove it at the source
Clarify decision rights and the handful of priorities that matter this quarter, so teams act without waiting and messages land first time.
SCALE
Make it stick
Build the new habits into the day job, not on top of it, and have line managers confirm the change rather than relying on self-report.
Where is friction costing you?
The JBL Friction Finder takes about five minutes and scores your leadership layer on the same five dimensions as this report. It's free and confidential.
JBL High Performance. The Leadership Consultancy and Advisory for businesses held back by friction.
About the data
Engagement outcomes (section 01 and the key numbers) are the measures JBL High Performance tracks and publishes across its programmes: participant and line-manager evaluations, programme ratings and before-and-after measures of escalations, hours and decision level. Hours reclaimed and escalation figures come from measured client programmes such as Tatua; line-manager scores come from the managers' own bosses, not self-report.
The JBL Friction Index (sections 02 and 03) is an early read from JBL Friction Finder responses submitted between May and September 2026. It's a small, self-selected sample, so treat the dimension scores and profiles as directional rather than a benchmark. JBL will update the Index as responses grow.
Internal and test submissions were removed. No names, email addresses or company names appear in this report; every figure is a count, percentage or average.