The company with the best leadership in the U.S. isn't a tech titan or hospitality giant: It's management consulting firm Bain & Company.

That's according to Glassdoor, which released on Tuesday its inaugural 50 Best-Led Companies ranking. The list measures how effectively bosses communicate and foster healthy company cultures, based on the workplace review website's anonymous employee ratings.

Beyond Bain, the tech industry does occupy much of the list — 12 companies, more than any other sector. Consulting, finance and retail are the next-most represented industries, with six companies appearing from each.

Most of those businesses share something, says Glassdoor lead economist Daniel Zhao: relatively transparent leadership, which is a desired trait among much of today's workforce.

"What really sets apart leaders is their ability to build a positive and engaging culture and also to communicate effectively and transparently," Zhao tells CNBC Make It.

Here are the top 10 companies on Glassdoor's list:

1. Bain & Company
2. Databricks
3. Protiviti
4. Nvidia
5. Raymond James Financial
6. Equitable Advisors
7. AMD
8. Samsara
9. In-N-Out Burger
10. Autodesk

Bain & Company is no stranger to Glassdoor's recognition — in January, it was named the best U.S. company to work for in 2024, claiming that title for the sixth time. The consulting firm's high employee satisfaction stems from a business that provides "good career opportunities" and executives who lead by example, says Zhao.

"It's not enough to just say, 'Hey, we have a good culture,'" he says. "It's really important for leaders to also demonstrate those values by example, and that's certainly something that I think comes through in cases like Bain."

Workplace trust and transparency

High-profile layoffs over the last year — at companies like Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft — didn't keep the tech industry from dominating Glassdoor's rankings. Microsoft even appears on the list, at No. 42.

The reason: Tech companies often have relatively flat organizational structures, younger leadership and workers who expect transparency from executives, Zhao explains.

"It does mean that employees expect more from their leaders," he says. "But it also means that good leaders are rewarded by their employees with trust and engagement, in a way that might not always be possible in other industries where employees and leaders are more at an arm's length."

That sense of workplace trust matters. Nearly half of U.S. workers withhold feedback to management for fear of retaliation, found a Glassdoor-commissioned survey conducted by The Harris Poll in February.

A well-led company avoids that situation by establishing a "culture of psychological safety," in which employees feel their voices can be heard without facing reprisal, Zhao says. Leaders then have the chance to incorporate employee critiques into their efforts to improve the business, he adds.

"Leadership is a collective effort," says Zhao. "It's not just the CEO, it's not even just the C-suite, but there are opportunities for leadership up and down the corporate ladder. And companies that excel at leadership are not just ones with a great CEO — they're ones where leadership is really strong across the board."

The new Glassdoor report drew from companies with more than 1,000 employees that received at least 100 ratings of CEO job performance and senior management. Reviews submitted by U.S.-based employees between March 2023 and February 2024 were considered for the ranking, the website noted.

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