Take a quick glance at your coworkers. Only one in three feels engaged at work, according to the latest figures from Gallup. With so many disengaged people in the workplace, it’s possible that your boss is the person who’s checked out, especially if you find yourself connecting with them less and less.

New data from Prodoscore found that the most significant warning sign that your manager is disengaged is lack of communication. Disengaged managers communicate with their teammates less than 53% of the time. Disengaged leaders decrease their use of chat platforms, email, and voice and video calls. They also attend or hold fewer meetings.

“In particular, when people are disengaging, you tend to see a precipitous decrease in social activities first,” says Adrian Reece, vice president of data science for Prodoscore, a productivity intelligence solution. “Then you’ll see decreases in the tools they use to do their work, like documents or Salesforce. In some cases, the leader will go up to a week without reaching out to certain members.”

THE RISKS

Leaders play a large role in the engagement of employees, and a lot of employees leave primarily due to their managers, not the work itself, says Reece.

“Managers tend to be a bridge across departments or across different functional teams,” he says. “Without that manager present, there’s going to be a breakdown in coordination. The relationship relies on the attributes of the worker. The team member is going to have to be conscientious enough to maintain their performance despite not having that direct leader or direct access points to determine what direction they should take.”

When a leader doesn’t regularly connect with their employees, it increases the risk of attrition, says Prodoscore’s CEO Sam Naficy. “A lot of them are very good employees that organizations don’t want to lose,” he says. “Replacing good workers and good colleagues is very expensive.”

Disengaged managers don’t provide employees with the support they need to do their best work, says Mary Abbajay, president of the leadership consulting firm Careerstone Group and author of Managing Up: How to Move Up, Win at Work, and Succeed with Any Type of Boss.

“I call a disengaged manager the ghost boss,” she says. “They aren’t going to be out there looking to develop you, thinking about what kind of challenging projects would be good for your growth and development and visibility. They’re probably not going to be advocating for you. And they’re probably not going to help you really get promotions. You run the risk of losing your development, your career progression, and your career trajectory.”

ASK FOR FEEDBACK

Abbajay recommends being proactive with your manager. Do whatever you can to solicit feedback from them. Make it very clear about your needs for their time or their input. For example, schedule regular meetings with them to discuss critical projects. While they may cancel those meetings, continue to be proactive.

When you do get their attention, use the time like a surgical strike, says Abbajay. “Get in with your most pressing concerns and get out,” she says. “Part of what you want to do with a disengaged boss is to train them that when you say you need only 10 minutes, you really need only 10 minutes. It’s hard for them to disengage with you because you’re brief and succinct.”

SEEK MENTORS

In addition, Abbajay recommends developing solid relationships with other people in the organization. Just because your boss isn’t paying attention to what you’re doing there doesn’t mean others aren’t noticing, too, she says.

“You don’t want anyone to think you are disengaged by proximity,” she says. “You don’t want anyone to think that you’re a slouch or a slacker because your boss is. You will have to make an extra effort to show your worth and your value to the organization.”

Connect with people who are more senior than you, so that you can get any coaching or mentoring that you need, says Abbajay. “You’re going to have to be very much a self-starter, and your own Sherpa to make your own way through this organization,” she says.

STRIVE FOR SELF-SUFFICIENCY

But don’t throw your boss under the bus. “Be as self-sufficient as you can get, but you have to do some CYA, which is ‘cover your ass,’” says Abbajay. “Just because this person is ghosting you or disengaged with you, you cannot disengage or ghost that person. Keep them in a loop through email or some sort of trail.”

Finally, Abbajay says try not to take your boss’s disengagement personally or let it infiltrate your sense of self-worth or value.

“Chances are people who are disengaged are disengaged for their own reasons,” she says. “You could say, ‘Looks like you’ve been really busy lately. We haven’t seen much of you. Is there anything that I could do to help?’ Try approaching them as a human being.”