Are you a Middle Manager?

Dictionary Definition of Middle Manager is "An employee of an organisation or business who manages at least one subordinate level of managers, and reports to a higher level of managers within the organisation."

A Manager stuck in the middle, managing upwards and downwards, that's a middle-manager. They are like a filling in a Victoria Sponge, and the quality of the filling is paramount to the overall cake, from a taste point of view but also from keeping the cake together - BUT is it appreciated? Are they appreciated? As a Middle-Manager, do they get the support required to deal with the upward and downward demands? They are pulled from all sides, and often there is lack of support from above in relation to:

• Not listening to their ideas and/or feedback
• Not communicating to them any changes/information within the company
• Not appreciating the fact that the relationship they have with the line-managers, has an impact on their job satisfaction/effectiveness which can determine the rate of staff turnover among them and also their direct reports.
• Not giving weight to the fact that if they are engaged, supported and valued in the company, then it is very likely that they will create the same space for the line managers which will feed down to the main employees
• Not realising that the top level of Management is only as good as the Middle-Management, which has a direct relationship to the productivity, performance and engagement of the line workers and their managers.
• And much more............

Support for the Middle-Manager

Support as a Middle-Manager is paramount to them being effective within their role. Theirs is mostly a leadership role, yet have they had any training offered to them to increase their leadership abilities? Have they been offered any Coaching to help them improve their presence within their middle-manager role, where they are now acting in a more strategic way, instead of being solely focused on one area as when they were a line-manager. Have they had time to prepare for this role which now includes managing teams, being the direct report to the next level of management, and suddenly being in a 'middle' role where they need the ability to see both sides.

Just because the middle-manager was very effective in their previous role, does not mean that they automatically have leadership or people skills, BUT these can be learned and improved upon if Coaching is offered to them. The middle-manager obviously impressed as a line-manager, so isn't it a shame that after promotion so many of them are just left to middle-manage in a role which does not generally have much direction/is semi-structured?

Middle-managers are a very valuable level of management translating the strategic view of the company to the line-managers and employees, and making it applicable to the day-to-day running of the company. When people from within are promoted to middle-management, it is much more successful than hiring from outside, as they already have a depth of knowledge of the company, the product(service), the culture and workforce etc. So with all of this in mind, is it not a ridiculous state of affairs when the majority of middle-managers are just left to their own devices with no support?

Listen and Look

Coaching is often offered at executive level, but I see a lack of coaching for middle-managers and I think it is time that they are listened to and looked at as a very relevant layer in the company. If middle-management is supported in the same way as senior management (after all many of them are on that ladder), it will have an extremely positive effect on the company as a whole, the effectiveness of the line-managers and employees below them. It will also really bring out the middle-manager's strengths and abilities to use 'now', to improve their effectiveness, and which will automatically single out the candidates who are ready to climb the next rung on the ladder when the time comes.

So do not neglect your middle-managers, they are very valuable to the success of your company. When middle-managers were let go during flattening of companies in the downturn, it was not a successful move - as they are not an extra layer of management which can be done without, they are the cohesion between the upper and lower levels in a companies workforce, they are the filling in the Victoria sponge. So look after and support your middle managers, after all who would want a Victoria sponge with no filling?

No cakes were harmed in the writing of this article!

Eileen Woodford +353 (0) 86 600 7125