The importance of developing and engaging middle managers

Recently I was asked to present to a group of Senior HR Leaders on a timely topic of my choice. I reached out to our R&D team and some of our Senior Consultants to see what they were hearing from our clients, and it did not take long to decide on just the right topic. I landed on the importance of developing and engaging Middle Managers.

There are surprisingly few initiatives or development dollars being directed toward this very important group of people, so between client experiences, available research, and data based on testing we do for our clients, I pulled together the following information.

This article will outline why the Middle Management role is critically important, the challenges that Middle Managers face, and how to help them be more successful in their roles.

Why Middle Managers Are So Important

Middle managers are critical to organizational success for many reasons – here are just a few:

• They are closest to where the work happens and where most of the employees are
• They often have a large span of control and are responsible for people at different levels in the organization
• They are often “connectors” between individual contributors and senior leaders
• Some say that an employee’s immediate manager shapes up to 70% of their work experience
• They are critical to creating a positive culture and ensuring employees are engaged

How Middle Managers Find Themselves in Their Roles

Often people who are high-performing individual contributors are selected for supervisory roles. They may or may not have asked for advancement, and they likely do not know what to expect or how to be successful. If you ask a high performer what they aspire to in their career or what their career goals are, they will often say things like “advancement,” “supervisory responsibility,” or “taking on challenges.” While these are admirable responses and true for many people, they can be politically correct answers rather than genuine ones. This can create dissonance and disengagement within people who have been successful in a given role but now find themselves filling a role they did not really want and do not feel equipped or comfortable doing.

Some of the Many Challenges of Being a Middle Manager

Middle Managers have the unique challenge of answering to two different stakeholder groups – their people and their direct managers. Different qualities might be required to satisfy and successfully influence each of these groups, and success factors may not even be defined clearly. In a matrixed environment this is even more difficult as different senior leaders will undoubtedly have different priorities and expectations.

Success Undefined/Unclear Expectations

When people are moved into supervisory roles, it can be hard for them to know what success looks like in terms of being a good manager and leader. Often, there are unclear expectations around decision-making with cloudy boundaries and undefined levels of authority. Most people want to succeed in their management roles and are promoted because of expertise, experience, and judgment. But without a clear pathway to success, otherwise successful people may struggle or fail in their new roles.

It may also be the case that behaviors and attitudes that get a person promoted may be detrimental or counterintuitive in a supervisory role. Some necessary qualities for success in an individual contributor role might actually become impediments in supervision. For example, individual contributors get noticed by taking a lot of responsibility upon themselves where supervisors typically need to delegate and work through others. Individual contributors are part of a team and likely devote time to relating with their peers, whereas supervisors need to be relatable but stand apart from those who were previously their teammates. Needing to distance themselves from direct reports can be difficult, especially if they value the relationships that have been built over time.

Sometimes managers can get conflicting feedback or mixed messages from people around them. A boss might suggest that the manager needs to be more assertive with their reports but might respond negatively if the person is assertive with them. A boss could want a manager to be more decisive and independent as a decision-maker, but then direct reports might feel excluded or uninvolved in situations that directly affect them. It can definitely be a balancing act to meet the needs of different people with different priorities and agendas.

Lack of Training

People are often promoted based on one set of skills or technical expertise that may or may not be relevant in a supervisory role. Training and coaching are not always available for new managers, with leaders assuming that if the people were successful before, they will be successful in the new role.

Proper training should include not only what a middle manager should start doing, but also what they should stop doing. People develop habits and ways of doing things that serve them well, and without an intentional effort to change one’s actions and priorities, Middle Managers may find themselves focusing on the wrong tasks and falling short on managerial responsibilities.

Time Management/Prioritization Challenges

People in supervisory roles often struggle with too much to do and not enough time to do everything. Entire days can be spent in meetings, leaving little time for getting things done, not to mention devoting time to more strategic work. This can result in people working long hours without feeling much satisfaction or task completion.

They also are tasked with monitoring performance and tracking projects which can feel unfamiliar for people with little training. The lack of time and lack of comfort in giving people feedback can result in employees not receiving the coaching they might need. Again, defining what success looks like in terms of doing the work and leading others would be helpful so people know how to best use their time.

Leading and Accepting Change

When a new directive comes down from senior leadership, middle managers need to hear it, digest it, and communicate it to their teams in understandable and inspirational ways. If the senior team communicates clearly, with details, and with anticipated questions taken into consideration, this may not be hard to do. But as sometimes happens, details can be lacking, and managers may not have all the background to successfully communicate the right message in the right way.

To further complicate things, managers may have their own opinions on the subject and may not agree with the directive being given. Or they might not immediately know how said directives will affect them. It is hard enough for people to lead change when they are aligned with the initiative, but it is doubly hard if people are not aligned or are opposed to the message they are expected to deliver. So, they find themselves being both the victims and the carriers of change.

Relationship With Power and Authority

Middle Managers can find themselves having a complicated relationship with power. When it comes to dealing with their teams, they often have the directive and the authority to influence people and make decisions. When dealing with their supervisors, managers likely take more subordinate positions, being influenced by, and subjected to, decisions of those with more power than them. Being in these different positions can be mentally taxing and can require very different skill sets. And there may be switching costs that come along with being both a manager and a subordinate in a given period of time.

In a similar vein, Middle Managers are often asked or expected to make decisions for their teams without always having the authority to do so. Controlling executive leaders can put managers in tough spots – having to manage their teams without the ability to answer tough questions or make even the smallest decisions. This can be embarrassing and frustrating for managers who want to do the right things for their teams and their organizations.

How Leaders Can Help Middle Managers Be Successful

Develop and implement training that can be delivered ideally before a person moves into a management role. Consider implementing a structured training program for everyone in people manager roles. In terms of what training to provide, there are several approaches to take. One is to provide workshops on key areas that cover a variety of topics applicable to management such as Delegation, Coaching, Providing Feedback, and Communication to name a few. Some organizations build a benchmark by understanding the behaviors and attitudes that their successful people leaders demonstrate so that new managers can be trained on the most important qualities.

Have Regular One-On-One Meetings

Leaders of Middle Managers are in the best position to help them be successful. By having regularly scheduled meetings, time is set aside for leaders to share experiences, work through management challenges, and offer coaching suggestions. Managers should be encouraged to bring real life scenarios to work through, to share their recommendations and get insight from their leaders. This is also a chance for leaders to empathize with their managers, help them build their confidence, and encourage them to do the difficult things required of middle managers.

Help Managers Manage Time and Prioritize

By keeping apprised of what managers are working on, leaders can help evaluate timelines, impact, and scope of different assignments. They can also encourage people to use calendaring to get things done, create space to think, connect with their people, and focus on some higher-level activities. Wherever possible, meetings can be altered, shortened, or even eliminated in some cases. This can allow time for people to get work done and spend personal time with individuals on their teams.

Consider a start-stop-continue exercise where activities are critically analyzed to decide which ones are worth doing and which ones aren’t. Often people do things out of habit or because they were once useful, and some activities can likely be discontinued. Finally, managers often struggle to delegate and work effectively through others. Leaders can help their managers decide which tasks they should be doing themselves and which ones they should be assigning to others.

Clearly Define Responsibilities and Decision-Making Authority

Work with managers to understand what their key responsibilities are and what success looks like in their roles. People might need encouragement to stop doing things that they were previously responsible for (and likely good at) to have time for things that are more important to a middle management role. These responsibilities can be addressed, and feedback can be provided in the one-on-one meetings mentioned above as well.

Regarding decision-making authority, work to identify what type of decisions the manager can make independently, and which ones require approval or input from others. Establishing criteria up front can help the manager gain credibility and enhance confidence when questioned by their teams or faced with problems that come up unexpectedly. Also, try to encourage a growth mindset so that when small mistakes are made, they are learning opportunities and viewed as steps toward success rather than derailers.

Provide Support and Enhance their Engagement

Leaders can be supportive and enhance the engagement of Middle Managers by understanding the challenges they face and helping them work through issues. Whenever possible, link their activities to broader organizational goals so they see the meaning in what they are doing and asking others to do. When Middle Managers will be expected to lead change initiatives, include them in the conversations earlier so they are in a better position to communicate effectively and persuasively to win support from their teams. Explaining the ‘why’ behind future actions will empower them to answer questions and overcome objections that might come from their teams. Doing so will also allow them to communicate with their own voices rather than simply translating messages from senior leadership. When possible, include Middle Managers in the discussions and get their input. They are likely to have good insight into how people are feeling and what is actually happening as they are closer to the action than senior leaders might be.

Create Opportunities for Peer Learning

Cohort learning is a great way to help people interact, share best practices, and develop collegial relationships to depend on over time. People will have different strengths and weaknesses, so by working together peers can solve problems at their level and by complementing each other. Senior leaders can create a team atmosphere among their direct reports, so they go to each other first, before elevating problems to higher levels.

Developing Middle Managers for Executive Level Roles

It is likely that some subsets of Middle Managers will want to advance to senior leadership roles, although not all of them will have the ability to do so. To perform well in any role, people need to have the motivation and the ability to be successful.

PRADCO’s Quick View™ Leadership Assessment measures 40 behaviors relevant to management and leadership success. It is a forced-choice assessment so everyone that takes it has to have high, moderate, and low scores. We know that people act differently in different roles and that behaviors can change over time. We did an analysis of how leaders operate at different levels: we compared scores of Middle Managers with those of Executive Leaders to see what behaviors were demonstrated most in each group.

The ten most emphasized behaviors by Middle Managers are listed in the table above, Middle Managers score highest on individualistic qualities like being responsive, persuasive, flexible, innovative, and showing good judgment. Responsiveness scores are interesting – this behavior had the highest average of all 40 (72nd percentile). Executive leaders, by comparison, have an average score of 47th percentile. In mid-level roles managers need to be responsive, prioritize other people’s needs, and answer people’s emails in a timely way. At executive levels, the score is more modest – these leaders need to be responsive but likely put more emphasis on other, higher-order behaviors. Middle Managers score higher on the management behavior of Structure (67th percentile) compared to Executives (48th percentile) suggesting that Middle Managers need to provide more definition and detailed instruction when delegating to others than Executives who would typically manage higher-level, more experienced managers.

Executive leaders achieve the highest average scores on different behaviors: leading change (80th percentile), inspiring others (77th percentile), strategic (77th percentile) and delegation (76th percentile). Middle Managers achieve more modest scores on these same dimensions as they tend to favor more individualistic qualities and decision-making behaviors.

This data can be used to develop training programs for people currently in Middle Manager roles or for those that aspire to get there. If a Middle Manager scores low on promoting teamwork, flexibility, judgment or any other of the high scores, those are behaviors that can improve with effort and time. The Executive level data can be used to develop current leaders and for succession planning purposes too. If an organization wants to offer training to current Middle Managers to help them excel and prepare for advancement, they will benefit from coaching on how to be more strategic, lead change, and delegate work to others. They might also need to be more aware of things happening around them, due to the importance of Organizational Awareness in leadership roles. It is also interesting that Executives tend to emphasize building trust and demonstrating integrity more than middle managers. This may be due to their level of confidence and willingness to be transparent and vulnerable with others.

Summary

Managing people can be rewarding, but it can also be challenging too. By understanding the importance of Middle Managers and recognizing what type of support and training they need, leaders can help this level of manager be more successful.