Middle management plays a crucial role in the implementation of a business vision and strategies defined by executives. Their job is to align people around a shared purpose, transform objectives into specific plans and actions, and help their teams to learn, grow, and win. The impact of the mid-level on employee engagement, total productivity, and organizational performance, is enormous.

Despite their challenging spot in between C-suite and front-line employees, with a constant pressure from both top and bottom, middle managers make a real difference.

While the upper level is focused on mapping out the general direction, tracking the overall target attainment, and communicating sufficient pressure for an organizational shift, the task of the middle management is to convert the tension into a positive energy, and to prevent freezing their people in times of change.

They are expected to help employees in rationalizing the pressure coming from the top and create a meaning out of it.

Of course, it is not always the case, especially if conditions for productive collaboration between the senior and the middle levels are not there. Such a gap can have plenty of forms, starting from communication failure and ending with competing inter-level priorities and agendas.

This might lead to unreasonable squeezing of the middle management and to raising one or few of their typical dilemmas:

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The weaker the collaborative institutions, the tougher the pressure, and the greater the dilemmas.

Below we are going to review four key criteria, which might improve and institutionalize interactions between the “C” and the “M” levels.

1. Organizational Alignment

The first and the foremost criterion is related to an alignment of the organizational structure with the company’s mission and strategy. It enables the enterprise to operate effectively and efficiently as well as to stay focused on achieving the long-term objectives.

Having no such alignment leads to conflicting priorities for the middle managers, reducing their autonomy, and generating communication breakdowns.

Example: Yahoo, Kodak, Blackberry and many other relevant examples of such misalignment led to quite tough implications, including but not limited to the loss of their competitive advantage and multiple rounds of layoffs.

2. Distributing Authority Effectively

The second one is a productive cross-level distribution of a power, which contributes to required transparency, reasonable flexibility, proper compliance, and necessary speed in the decision-making process. When power and authority are distributed in a way that empowers middle managers to make meaningful contributions to a company, this leads to their greater engagement and abilities to empower their teams too.

However, when the power is concentrated at the top or roles and responsibilities are unclearly defined, it brings frustration, confusion, and unhealthy conflicts within an organization.

Example: General Motors and Nokia were highly centralized in the early 2000s. They both gave lack of decision-making to the middle and encouraged micromanagement at all levels. This led to an inability to respond to changing market conditions, and ultimately to a decline in market share and profitability.

3. Authentic Leadership

The third criterion is an authentic leadership presence as a source of engagement and meaning, which adds significant value to organizations by building trust and increasing resilience.

The strength of authentic leaders lies in their emotional intelligence and clear sense of purpose, shaped by life’s challenges and the ability to reframe their experiences. They channel their ambitions beyond personal success, focusing instead on serving their people and building great companies.

It is worth mentioning that quite a few CEOs, who rise to the top based on high IQ and a strong track record, are ultimately let go due to moderate emotional intelligence and a self-centered leadership approach.

Example: Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of Theranos is one of the most striking illustrations of the ego-centric leadership purpose of the past decade.

4. A Collaborative Culture

And last but not least is a culture of collaboration, learning, and feedback, which allows organizations to strengthen their competitive advantage and maximize productivity.

A culture that fulfills fundamental human needs such as acceptance, belonging, psychological safety, and having a voice, naturally transforms fear into constructive strategies for success. It empowers both senior and middle management to strengthen teamwork, enhance accountability, and attract and retain grade “A” talents.

If a culture cultivates dominance and discrimination, people are unlikely to bring their passion, creativity, curiosity, and accountability needed to accomplish challenging goals.

The given four criteria are the basis for productive cross-level collaboration. They create necessary conditions to resolve the middle managers’ dilemmas, and support the C-suite in fixing emerging issues at the mid-level too.

What Should Middle Managers Do?

In the meantime, since the development of the criteria lies with the executives, middle managers are left wondering what to do when one or more of those criteria are missing. How should they handle such dilemmas?

The following recommendations might be of a help:

Practice in giving feedback to your manager.

This kind of feedback is considered to be one of the most difficult, and many middle managers struggle with how to get started with it. If your manager solicits feedback from you, that’s great. But what if they don’t?

You can drive it successfully both in proactive and reactive ways.

If you approach your manager proactively, you can say, “I have some information which might be important for you” and then briefly explain a rationale behind what you are going to say. Be empathetic, well-prepared, and precise. Focus on the one, most challenging behavior you are concerned about.

After presenting a short summary of facts and consequences to your manager, stop and check if she or he understand what it is about, and agree with your assessment.

Unlike when giving feedback to direct reports, avoid suggesting solutions or setting timelines for improvement. Instead, keep your feedback focused on behavior and impact, your role is to help your manager see what they cannot see, allowing them to save face.

Remember that by helping your manager, you are helping yourself, your teams, and your organization as a whole.

The reactive form presumes that your manager wants to solicit feedback from you. In this case you should always start with the following question, “How would you like me to present feedback to you?” and then listen carefully to the answer.

Act in a way as asked by your manager, but keep in mind the recommendations mentioned above.

Immerse C-Suite into your reality.

“The truth is generally seen, rarely heard”

Baltasar Gracian

Since CxOs are less aware about the context at the front lines and thus sometimes set unreasonable performance expectations to the middle management, you should do your best to immerse your CxO smartly into your reality.

Using data and facts is essential, but senior managers may achieve faster results by confronting reality firsthand. Direct conversations with frontline employees, as well as meetings with prospects, customers, and partners, can shift performance discussions into more compassionate and motivating exchanges.

Over time, CxOs who previously showed little interest in your team’s well-being may start asking about it.

The sensitive immersing detail which should be taken into account, is that a CxO must be well briefed before meeting your reality. Otherwise, the step could bring more damage than value.

Keep serving your people.

By serving your people and by overcoming leadership challenges, your character is built, your self-awareness is deepened, and your leadership purpose is sharpened.

During times of tension and change, your focus on helping each team member succeed becomes even more critical.

Remember that you have the most profound effect on the success or failure of your people.

The roots of potential outcomes lie in aligning business goals with three key elements – individual aspirations, competences, and personal development plans.

Your people do not need you to become their friend, nor just a function.

Your people need you to coach, teach, and motivate them.

They need you to help them reach their personal goals, grow and win. They need you to create a meaning of what they do at work, and thus of their life too.

Do not let yourself get burned out

We measure our key performance indicators, understand them well, work on their control and improvement. However, we do not usually do the same with our stress or with an external pressure coming on us.

What would happen if your KPIs are not managed well?

Most likely, it would lead to a failure.

What would happen if your stress is not managed well?

The answer is the same.

No manager is able to effectively help their employees if she or he is burned out. And the nature of a burning point is that we usually hardly notice how we reach it. We are totally blind along the way of accumulating our stress till we are at the top of it.

To prevent this, start practicing daily meditation. This powerful mindfulness practice, rooted in Eastern traditions, has become a gold standard for modern leaders. By incorporating body-tracking technology, you can monitor not only your physical activity but also the consistency of your meditation practice.

The Wrap

Middle management is the bridge that connects strategy to execution, yet the weight of expectations from both the C-suite and frontline employees can create challenges. When alignment, authority distribution, authentic leadership, and a culture of collaboration are lacking, middle managers find themselves caught in dilemmas, torn between corporate directives and their leadership values.

While organizations must institutionalize these foundations for effective cross-level collaboration, middle managers can take proactive steps: giving constructive feedback to senior leaders, immersing executives in frontline realities, supporting their teams with clarity and purpose, and safeguarding their own well-being.

Leadership at the mid-level is about translating pressure into progress, turning challenges into opportunities, and creating meaning in the work that fuels an organization’s success.