Middle managers are caught between accomplishing the organization’s goals and attending to employees' needs. They often feel powerless which reinforces their inability to move the organization forward.
As shared in previous posts, good leaders serve their team, resulting in higher performance and morale. McKinsey research indicates that positive relationships with management (direct supervisor) accounts for 86% of employee satisfaction.
Yet, middle managers report spending 20% or less of their time attending to their employees. Instead, they spend nearly a day a week (18% of their time) on administrative work - scheduling and documenting meetings, approvals, and just 23% of their time on strategy-focused work.
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Organizations often treat middle managers as the catchall - dumping tasks on them senior managers don’t want to do without administrative support or training and to deal with bureaucratic processes and systems.
The real value of middle managers is twofold. 1) attend to the needs of their direct reports and 2) develop strategy-focused work plans and oversee initiatives. The latter requires a properly developed and engaged workforce, so middle managers really only have one focus: develop and engage their team.
As shared in previous posts, developing an engaged workforce involves three things:
- Visibility - each employee feels known, not anonymous.
- Relevance - each employee sees the connection between their work and the satisfaction of others.
- Measurement - each employee can gauge their progress and level of contribution.
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Developing these three things, however, takes time, development, and training that middle managers are often not given. Organizations need to stop dumping menial administrative tasks on middle managers and improve processes and systems to eliminate bureaucracy (unnecessary approvals and paperwork). The best way to do this is for the senior leadership team to obtain and (over)communicate clarity. Clarity is all about the leadership team being aligned on the answers to six critical questions of the organization:
- Why do we exist?
- How do we behave?
- What do we do?
- How will we succeed?
- What is most important right now?
- Who will do what?
Such clarity can be cascaded throughout the organization and embedded into daily work - middle managers can work with employees to connect their projects and daily tasks to larger strategic objectives and tie corporate metrics to individual performance metrics. Clarity also removes the inevitable conflict between functions/departments that occurs when there is a lack of clarity. Such conflict adds meetings and emails to the middle manager’s plate. It also adds frustration. It is difficult to engage your team if you are miserable too.
Clarity also provides agency for middle managers to achieve strategic objectives in ways best suited for their team which further develops both their team and their leadership capability.
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Missing clarity in your organization? Contact SOS to schedule a two-day Clarity Workshop with your leadership team.
Want to develop the leadership capability of your middle managers? Contact SOS to sign them up for the next cohort of the Essential Leader Master Class.
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