Empowering the Middle: Are middle managers optimizing their impact?
For my final post of the year, I suggest dedicating a few minutes to explore the role of middle managers and their influence. Listening to Dave Stachowiak and Emily Field in this podcast: Where Senior Leaders Can Better Support Middle Managers , middle managers reported allocating more time to individual contributor tasks than any other type of work. Additionally, they mentioned receiving greater recognition for these individual contributions compared to their managerial responsibilities. Another noteworthy challenge is that middle managers frequently experience a lack of authority and control relative to those they oversee. Consequently, they often express a sense of not being adequately positioned for success. Do you concur with this observation?
In my capacity as a coach, CHRO, and former middle manager myself (from some years ago), I resonate with this perspective. However, this situation isn't conducive to positioning middle managers for success. The endurance of this issue prompts reflection, and I identify a few reasons for its persistence:
Selection Criteria: Middle managers are often chosen based on their performance in previous roles rather than their potential for effective management.
Lack of Preparation: Newly promoted managers aren't adequately prepared for the challenges of management.
Comfort Zone Resistance: Many new managers prefer to remain within their comfort zones, sticking to what they excel at in the short term.
Inadequate Priority Management: The proper management of priorities and a thorough evaluation of managerial performance are often overlooked.
Addressing these issues could be a relatively straightforward task, yet we continue to observe suboptimal contributions from middle managers, despite their acknowledged importance as key success factors for the company.
Emily Field suggests several insights to equip our middle managers with the tools to enhance their impact on performance. Some of these insights have been recurrent in my previous posts, such as emphasizing trust and continuous learning.
It's crucial to be mindful of what tasks are uniquely suited for managers. Defining their roles, responsibilities, and outlining our expectations for middle managers are essential considerations.
Consider rewarding managers for their managerial contributions rather than solely focusing on personnel outcomes.
Establish the middle management position as a career destination by offering lateral career paths within middle management. Instead of promoting the best middle managers out of their roles, promote from within the existing pool.
Always prioritize the development of middle managers, emphasizing and rewarding continuous learning. Coaching is an integral part of the solution.
Trust and empower middle managers to propose and contribute to organizational changes. They possess unique qualifications to reconfigure jobs and redistribute talent effectively, making them key players in normalizing change and dispelling fear associated with it.
Provide the necessary tools for middle managers to focus on managerial activities by automating non-managerial tasks such as reporting, analytics, and communication supporting documents.
Establish a partnership with HR and finance without outsourcing managerial activities to these departments, fostering collaboration and a shared approach to managerial responsibilities.
As a New Year's resolution, contemplate what actions you can take to support the middle managers within your organization. I am confident that your organizational performance will see an immediate uptick once you initiate this thoughtful consideration. Feel free to share your ideas and proposals with us; we welcome your input.
