Editorial
They make dozens of decisions each day, but not the strategic ones that shape your company's future. They're saddled with meetings and the busywork of managing subordinates, yet also must implement policies they don’t have a part in making. They’re stuck in the middle, listening to complaints from management and their direct reports about each other.
They're your middle managers, and they might be the unhappiest employees at U.S. organizations. Nearly a fifth of managers and supervisors report signs of depression. And Gallup's research shows that managers report more stress and burnout, worse work-life balance, and worse physical well-being than their direct reports.
Middle managers are the first cut in organizational restructuring, the first blamed for any failures or missed targets and the first in line for complaints. An entire canon of research is dedicated to solving the riddle of the middle manager. Harvard Business Review alone has run everything from “In Praise of Middle Managers,” to “Why Being a Middle Manager Is So Exhausting,” to “The End of the Middle Manager.”
But middle managers have an important role in your organization. They help employees navigate change, which ultimately powers organizational transformation — and you ignore their true leadership potential at your peril.
Why Middle Managers Are so Unhappy
A global survey found that middle managers (defined as those managing one to six people) are 46% less satisfied with their jobs than senior executives (those managing at least 15 people). Middle managers report struggling more than twice as much as executives when it comes to maintaining a sense of belonging, and they feel more stressed and less productive than their more senior colleagues.
Why are middle managers so miserable? Like the name says, they are literally stuck in the middle, balancing proactive leadership with their direct reports and engaged followership with top management. It’s a complex, exhausting and often overlooked double act.
Additionally, many managers never wanted to manage people at all. In many organizations, the only way for individual contributors to advance their careers is by becoming managers. The result is a large cohort of middle managers who have no real desire to lead people, who may not be qualified or even interested in becoming the types of managers their organizations truly need, or who view people management as a tick box exercise rather than their central purpose in the organization.
Think about it this way. When a baseball team wins the World Series, team owners reward the coach with a big bonus and a fat contract to lock them in for several more seasons. What they don’t do is say, “Hey, Coach, you did a great job putting the team together, getting people in the right roles and motivating them to work your hardest. As a reward, we’re moving you to the front office, where you won’t do any of those things anymore!”
But that’s exactly what many companies do. They promote talented middle managers out of people management and promote top-performing, individual contributors into middle management, leaving both groups unhappy in their roles.
Related Article: 2023 Was The Year Middle Management Felt the Squeeze
The Real Value of Middle Managers
Middle managers are essential to helping organizations navigate change. Their leadership can make work more meaningful and interesting for their teams, help employees become more productive and connect employees to company goals. According to McKinsey research, companies whose managers excelled on human capital metrics experienced a range of positive financial outcomes.
Middle managers do more than make sure the work gets done on time. When they help employees do their best work, their role is irreplaceable. Skilled managers understand their employees are more than just the work they do at the office. They can recognize when an underperforming employee is due to a poor fit or pressures at home, rather than a lack of effort. They can keep potential and current top performers who might otherwise leave due to underperformance, by moving them to a better role or prioritizing workloads.
For employees, their manager is also “the person that believes in you — that sees you can do more than what you’re doing,” as Lorraine Stomski, Walmart’s senior vice president of enterprise leadership and learning, told Harvard Business School’s Joseph Fuller.
Managers’ one-on-one conversations with employees are an ideal way to help with motivation and identify what stressors employees are dealing with. Middle managers who have regular conversations with their direct reports can help improve performance and drive loyalty. But this support can come at a cost for your managers if they don’t feel empowered to help or are hampered by their own work.
Your middle managers provide strategic talent management and make corporate goals and targets real for employees. The CEO may craft a compelling narrative about corporate mission, vision and values, but skilled managers drive the continuing conversation with front-line employees. In team meetings and one-on-one conversations, they discover what each employee values, connect their dreams to larger organizational goals and try to tailor each employee’s job to match their skills and goals.
Get Reworked Podcast: Breaking the Middle Management Boom-Bust Cycle
Making Middle Managers the Heart of Your Company
“Middle managers are at their best when they’re empowered to lead and drive impact,” said Emily Field on The McKinsey Podcast. “They can take a vision from a leader and make it a reality. And they’re talent magnets who attract high performers and make them shine even brighter by developing and apprenticing them.”
Managers have some of the hardest jobs in the organization, which means they are often your most stressed employees. Keep that in mind, give them compassion and support them as much as you can. As you set a plan to re-energize your middle managers, consider the following:
Keep your strong managers working as managers. Middle management is often looked at as a way station on the way to the true prize – an executive role. But as anyone who has moved up the ranks will tell you, that’s a surefire way to lose a good people manager to a life of creating slide decks, building alignment and providing reports. Do all you can to keep your good managers in the managerial ranks, whether it’s promoting them within the managerial track, providing pay raises or offering personal development opportunities.
Provide a non-managerial development track. On the same token, organizations need to build career paths that provide individual contributors with a development track to progress their careers without managing people. This alternative career path is vital to ensuring that those who do become middle managers want to do the work involved — not just get a bump in title or compensation.
Build a management community of practice. Middle managers are stressed and lonely. Offering a venue — whether in-person, virtual or hybrid — for your managers to network, discuss stresses, share ideas and brainstorm solutions is one way to address their isolation. Look for the leaders in your organization who want to drive change beyond their teams, and give them the resources and support they need.
Create a culture where managers feel free to speak up. Your managers are often like the canary in the coal mine: the first to see systemic problems. Being positioned close to the ground but not too close, they can provide resourceful solutions to problems that executive leadership aren’t even aware of. Be sure you’re giving them the opportunity to share their insight, and take their feedback seriously.
Conference
Oct
20
Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo Orlando 2025
Register
Conference
Oct
27
Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo Orlando 2025
Register
As organizational hierarchies become more fluid and virtual, middle managers will increasingly become more valuable in building relationships, influence and connection between top leadership and front-line employees. Beyond that, they have an invaluable role in helping promote organizational mission, vision and values, drive transformative change, and maintain employee loyalty and happiness. Be sure you’re recognizing the leadership qualities in your middle management, and that you’re providing them with the resources and support they need to excel.
Learn how you can join our contributor community.
