Leading from the middle | Why every business needs good middle managers

Middle managers don’t have it easy - dismissed by the senior leadership team as not senior enough, but not seen by employees lower down the organisational ranking as ‘one of them’ either. However, a recent article in the Financial Times has challenged the stereotype of the middle manager as “evoking mediocrity”.

The article points out that middle management has been under assault for the past 30 years, since an influential 1993 book called “Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution" by Michael Hammer and James Champy put the onus on businesses to look at what they’re getting from the middle – with the perhaps inevitable conclusion “not much”.

The FT article also suggests that the pandemic made things worse for middle managers, as the senior leadership team was forced to make quick decisions on their own. This may have led them to conclude that some of the further layers of management are unnecessary.

And, with the cost-of-doing-business crisis in full swing and the prospect of job losses on the horizon, it’s possible that the C-Suite will look at middle management as a prime area for making cuts.