Overcoming the Middle Manager Sandwich: CEO Strategies for Success

For this month’s expert article, we asked John Brennan, our newly appointed CEO, to provide nuanced feedback and guidance to middle managers on how to transition into capable leaders, balance the expectations of senior management and team members as well as understand how to set themselves up for success.

Over the years, I have been repeatedly asked by up-and-coming leaders and middle managers for recommendations about where they should focus their learning.  They genuinely want to be better at their roles but often feel the deep insecurity of imposter syndrome, especially early in their management and leadership journey.  For many, this insecurity persists even at the C-Suite level, where the crisis of confidence starts all over again because nobody teaches you how to be an effective Executive.

Common questions I get asked include – Should I do an MBA? What leadership program would you recommend? Is there a book I can read to short cut the process? (Yes, that’s a real question).

Front line leaders are often in the sandwich

Increasingly, senior management expect front line managers to have a great grasp of strategy and tactics and be accomplished communicators. The irony is that senior leaders often lack exactly what they expect from their middle managers. On the other hand, team members believe that their middle managers are better attuned to the information flow of the business than they are.

If you were to map how information flows and where the bulk of operational decisions get made, the map always converges at the middle management level.

A positive is that empirical studies continue to demonstrate that front line managers and team leaders are the most trusted people in most organisations.

If we use this as a starting point, we can map out a development pathway to superior performance and improved culture.

Technically skilled but lacking something that I can’t describe

So often, in discussion with managers and team leaders, they have a sense that they are lacking something in their management tool kit, but cannot describe what that is.

The realisation is a healthy sign that you have reached a point in your own development where you need to increase your capacity for something more than business skills.

Learning things verses growing capacity

Skill building is all about ‘learning more’ and adding to our body of knowledge.

In the workplace, the need to learn more never stops. We learn how the production line works, what the policies and procedures are, what workplace bullying is and quickly learn something as basic as the train timetable to get to and from work as efficiently as we can.

Even at its most complicated, skill building is about gathering information, retaining as much as we can and knowing where to store the rest of the information we cannot retain.

People who’ve built great capacity for leadership are always great story tellers. They capture a moment and connect the past, present and future.

This is what middle management needs to acquire.

They learn to supervise, how to read reports, give feedback, hold effective meetings…the list goes on.  As they develop more sophistication, and diversify their skills by learning how to manage, they navigate the nuances of managing different personalities in our teams.  They also develop an understanding that everything works better if there are reliable, repeatable systems in the workplace.

This enables middle managers, as skilled practitioners, to quickly spot defects or patterns, including unusual or inappropriate behavioural patterns, within the expected systems of work.

How to grow your capacity to learn more

My advice to middle managers is to focus primarily on skill building. Become a reliable manager of business who understands and maintains organisational systems of work, ensures compliance, and minimises risks for self and wider team.

At its simplest, capacity growing is about learning to be a leader. This includes exploring your own biases and prejudices, critically examining how you see and interact with others, and questioning why you do the things you do.

Growing your capacity is a different thing altogether for middle managers.

It is about evolving and making sense of things in an increasingly nuanced way. At its simplest, it is about learning to be more than just a middle manager and transitioning into a leader, including exploring biases and prejudices, critically examining how you see and interact with others, and questioning why you do the things you do.

Capacity building is an inward journey, with the aim of giving yourself a larger range.

The choice to be a leader in addition to being a manager

Capacity building can be difficult for the middle manager. It requires the courage to be vulnerable.

In my work as a coach, I have regularly encountered middle managers and emerging leaders who find the capacity building process confronting because they do not like what they see when they remove the mask that they have worn for so long. Others have an overwhelming sense of relief at finally understanding why they feel so unfulfilled about their work and even their relationships with friends and family.

People who’ve built great capacity for leadership are always great story tellers. They capture a moment and connect the past, present and future. They inspire those around them and make others feel like achievement is not only possible, but inevitable, so long as we all take the journey together.

Can we build skills and develop capacity all at once?

The answer is an unequivocal YES.

The best development programs carefully stitch together skill building and capacity building at the same time to help individuals in middle managerial roles reach the pinnacle of authentic leadership.

Unfortunately, there is an astonishing reality that most leadership programs fail because they focus on either skill or capacity building rather than integrating both at the right times.

Where to next?

We offer a variety of skill and capacity building programs or one on one mentoring and coaching for front line and middle managers, senior leaders, and employees. Our leadership development options range from the management fundamentals programs to advanced programs for executives and senior teams.

Start the conversation to find the best solution for your organisation. It could be the start to changing your culture.