Who can use this feature?
Available on:
All Culture Amp subscriptions that include Engagement (Attributed (Snapshot) surveys) and Effectiveness (Manager and Team Effectiveness surveys) with a validated employee hierarchy.
What are Leader-Based Reports?
Leader-Based Reporting (LBR) is a feature in Culture Amp’s Engage product that allows survey results to be reported and accessed according to an organization’s hierarchy. This enables leaders at different levels to view results relevant to their teams.
Leader-based reports are available for Attributed (Snapshot) surveys. To use this feature, you need to create a valid hierarchy for your organization based on manager email addresses.
Leader-Based Reporting can support organizations with up to 75,000 employees.
Why Use Leader-Based Reports
Leader-Based Reports make it easy to:
Give managers visibility into their team’s results.
Protect confidentiality through reporting thresholds.
Enable data-driven conversations and follow-up actions.
Share consistent, structured feedback across all levels of your organization.
Leader-Based Reporting supports organizations with up to 75,000 employees.
Internal comparison: Compare results within your organization.
External benchmark: Compare results to Culture Amp's benchmarks.
External comparison: Historical surveys outside Culture Amp (not supported).
How to Set Up Leader-Based Reports
Step 1: Confirm your hierarchy
Before you create a Leader-Based Report, make sure your hierarchy is valid and built using manager email addresses. This ensures each employee is correctly linked to their leader.
Step 2: Create a Leader-Based Report
Navigate to your survey’s Report Sharing page.
Select Create filtered report.
Choose the Leaders option.
From the drop-down menu, choose which hierarchy level to create reports for:
Level 0: Usually your CEO.
Level 1: Direct reports to the CEO.
Level 2: Managers reporting to Level 1, and so on.
Preview levels to see which leaders will receive reports.
Choose whether to include:
Direct reports only, or
Full reporting line (direct and indirect reports).
All selected leaders automatically become report viewers. You can remove individuals before publishing.
Give Leaders More Visibility With the “Select Leader” Option
When you include the full reporting line, you can enable a drill-down view so leaders can see data from managers below them in the hierarchy.
To enable this:
Tick View responses from the full reporting line.
Leaders will then see a Select Leader filter in their report to drill down into sub-team results.
If you prefer not to apply confidentiality removal rules (which protect anonymity in smaller groups), you can leave this option unticked.
Publishing and Sharing Reports
Once your setup looks correct:
Click Create draft to prepare your report shells.
When you’re ready, publish the reports to notify viewers by email.
Understanding Report Status
Reports may sometimes show as Not yet reportable or Unreportable.
Report Status | What It Means | What Happens |
Not yet reportable | There are enough invited participants in the reporting group, but not enough submitted responses yet. |
|
Unreportable | The total number of invited participants in this reporting group is below the reporting minimum. |
|
Confidentiality and Data Protection
Culture Amp applies strict confidentiality rules to ensure individual responses remain protected in Leader-Based Reports.
When using a full reporting line Leader-Based Report with drill-down enabled, there may be situations where:
A leader meets the minimum number of indirect reports, but
Has too few direct reports to meet your survey’s confidentiality settings.
When the Removal Rule Applies
The removal rule applies only to:
Full reporting line Leader-Based Reports with drill-down enabled, and
The Leader dropdown in the overall Admin report, which also includes full reporting line and drill-down functionality.
If you want to view a leader’s complete reporting line results without triggering this rule, create a Leader-Based Report and leave the drill-down checkbox unticked.
We recommend watching the short video below for a detailed explanation of how this rule works, including a few examples.
Keeping Your Data Accurate
Culture Amp automatically keeps your hierarchy data up to date when you add new participants to a live survey. When a new person is added, your surveys hierarchy information is refreshed automatically to match your current account-level employee hierarchy data.
This prevents missing managers or mismatched response counts. Because the update reflects your current hierarchy, it’s not possible to revert it to an earlier version, so always double-check before adding participants to an active survey.
What’s Different For Other Demographics
Unlike your hierarchy demographic, other demographics (like Department, Location, or Tenure) are not automatically updated once a survey has launched.
When your survey goes live, Culture Amp takes a snapshot of each participant’s demographics as they appear in your account-level employee data at that time. Any future changes made via HRIS sync or manual import won’t automatically update in the live survey. For more information, see Update Demographics in an Attributed Survey.
Best Practices for Success
✔️ Validate your hierarchy before launching your survey.
✔️ Always ensure managers have the correct Manager Email listed.
✔️ Remember that adding participants after launch automatically updates the hierarchy in your survey to match your account-level data.
✔️ Use direct reports only for a simpler, focused view.
✔️ Enable drill-down only when needed to avoid unnecessary data removal.
Troubleshooting/FAQs
Why are leader-based reports not available on my survey?
Why are leader-based reports not available on my survey?
Leader-Based Reports are only available for Attributed (Snapshot) surveys. They’re not available for:
Unattributed surveys
Onboard or Exit surveys
Individual or Leadership 360 surveys
If you believe your survey is eligible:
Ensure your hierarchy is validated.
Confirm every participant has a Manager Email in their profile.
Check that the hierarchy demographic is selected in the survey configuration.
Still stuck? Type “Ask a Person” in your support conversation to reach a Product Support Specialist.
Why do some responses not appear in my leader-based reports?
Why do some responses not appear in my leader-based reports?
The discrepancy in responses are likely due to confidentiality protections, which are stronger in leader-based reports when the drill-down feature is enabled. These protections are in place to keep individual responses confidential, especially in smaller groups. Leader-based reports exclude leaders themselves from their own reports to maintain objectivity, which can further account for discrepancies. For example, a team of five participants including their leader may only show four responses in leader-based reports because the leader's response is excluded.
When basic or strong protections are selected, we may remove certain responses to protect identities. You can usually see where responses were removed by clicking into a factor on your insights page and scrolling down to the bottom of the page to view the demographic spread graph. Usually, if responses have been removed due to confidentiality, you will see a blue banner above the demographic spread graph.
If fewer than 10% of responses are removed, the banner won’t appear. However, you can still hover over the "n=" score to identify which responses were removed. Always check the demographic spread graph for details.
Additionally, if a leader has fewer reports than the required minimum, their report won’t be created.
A potential workaround is to create two versions of your report: one with drill-down enabled and one without. This allows you to maintain confidentiality while still accessing more comprehensive data where possible.
When does the confidentiality banner appear in a leader-based report?
When does the confidentiality banner appear in a leader-based report?
The confidentiality banner appears in a leader-based report when more than 10% of responses have been removed to protect participant confidentiality. This ensures that report viewers can’t identify individual responses, especially in smaller groups. For example, if one response is removed from a group of 20 participants (which is 5%), the banner won’t appear. But if 10% or more of the responses are removed, the banner will show to highlight the data discrepancy.
You can also spot removed responses by comparing the participation rate with the "n=" information for each question. If the "n=" is smaller than expected, it likely means responses were removed.
Why does my participation report show different numbers compared to other parts of my report such as the insights or question report page?
Why does my participation report show different numbers compared to other parts of my report such as the insights or question report page?
The participation report shows how many participants submitted responses from different demographic groups, without revealing specific answers. This data is displayed, as it only counts submissions, not individual responses. Confidentiality protections are stronger in other parts of your reports page such as insights and questions as this shows actual response data.
Why does the heatmap show N/A when there are enough responses in the leader-based report?
Why does the heatmap show N/A when there are enough responses in the leader-based report?
In leader-based reports with drill-down enabled, some responses are hidden to protect confidentiality and prevent identification. The Heatmap doesn’t show warnings about these removed responses. However, if you apply the same demographic filter in the Insights page, a blue banner will appear to indicate that responses were removed for confidentiality.
Why can’t I set up leader-based reports, even with a hierarchy configured?
Why can’t I set up leader-based reports, even with a hierarchy configured?
This issue usually occurs if the hierarchy demographic isn’t selected as a survey demographic.
Here’s how to fix it:
Check your survey demographics:
Go to your survey’s Demographics page.
Confirm that the hierarchy demographic is ticked.
If your survey is live: Contact Support and ask to speak with a specialist to help add the demographic to your survey.
If your survey is in draft mode: Tick the demographic and save your changes.
Still need help? Just reply with "Ask a Person" in a support conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.
Tip: Not sure which demographic is your hierarchy demographic? Visit the Account demographics page and look for the hierarchy icon to confirm.
Related pages:
💬 Need help? Just reply with "Ask a Person" in a Support Conversation to speak with a Product Support Specialist.