If you’ve ever looked at your boss and wondered how they got their job, you aren’t alone.

A recent survey of 1,000 employees by Resume Lab has found that approximately one in five — or 22 per cent of U.S. employees — feel they are more qualified than their manager.

The participants worked in a range of settings, including remote employees, as well as people who worked in small, mid, and large-sized businesses.

People working in high-pressure environments were three times more likely to feel more qualified than their bosses when compared to those working in low-pressure environments. About 61 per cent of all participants believed they could handle their manager’s daily responsibilities.

“Considering experience plays a major role in qualification, entry-level and intermediate employees were significantly less likely than those in management positions to believe they were more qualified than their boss,” reads an excerpt from the survey results.

“A combination of experience and distance between positions may explain why entry-level and midlevel managers were twice as likely to believe they were more qualified than their superiors.”

Gender and age gap

About 24 per cent of men and 19 per cent of women felt more qualified than their manager.

Millennials were the most confident in their skills (23 per cent), followed by Generation X (21.1 per cent), and then Boomers (17.7 per cent).

Setting the tone

Work culture starts from at the top, and nearly 16 per cent of employees named said their manager contributed to a toxic environment. Ten per cent of the participants said they had filed a formal complaint against their manager.

Remote employees were 24 per cent more likely to lie to their manager. Overall, 73 per cent of employees said they had never lied to a superior.

Read more about the findings here.