Is Your Job the Hardest Job in Corporate America?
What’s harder than being in middle management?
NOTHING.
Just ask Simon Sinek.
Middle managers are expected to play fireman, counselor, and organizational paramedic while also bringing strategy, vision, and structure.
In short, they’re expected to be equal parts reactive and proactive. The problem is both of those roles require training and preparation.
We don’t pull people from the street and send them into burning buildings.
We don’t pull people from the street and ask them to develop a 10-year organizational strategy that accounts for a multitude of variables.
We don’t demand they do any of this while doing all of the other stuff.
Can you imagine asking a fireman to put out a fire and save a building but with the caveat that they could have no training, no prep time, and all their instructions would come from someone who isn’t a trained fireman?
Companies do this every day. Simon Sinek says “most things break in the middle.” I agree. The leg is a stupid appendage without the knee. The arm is useless without the elbow. The whole body is basically dysfunctional without the hip.
It’s the ability to flex and rotate that makes the body do magical things.
Watch a footballer dribble through a field, a basketball player glide through traffic, a tennis player change directions of the body and the ball with the swing of the hips and the flick of a wrist.
Middle-Management isn’t the reason many companies don’t become great but it is the reason greatness isn’t sustainable.
And this is new news. People in middle-management, according to a 2017 article published in the Harvard Business Journal,
“… are expected to play very different roles when moving from one interaction to the next, alternating between relatively high and relatively low power interaction styles. As a result, middle managers often find themselves stuck in between various stakeholder groups, which can produce “relentless and conflicting demands.”
I’m sure you’ve heard some of those conflicting demands before…
Just figure it out & don’t screw this up!
That’s what we hired you to do, nobody taught me about this either.
If you can’t fix this I’ll get someone who can because I don’t want to deal with this mess.
You’re just going to have to do more, I hated it when I had that job but that is just the way it is. Why do you think I wanted out so bad.
People are watching and you have to come through, I’m not going down for this.
Get us through this and I’ll get you some help. *Side Note… No help is coming. Once you “get through” that is used as evidence that you never needed help.
Which means….
Mid-level managers often ‘look’ unpromotable because the organization has invested in their failure simply by refusing to invest in their success.
So now what? Are you doomed? No way!
Can you do something? Absolutely!
First, we have to recognize how the disease of middle-management has infected us.
Second, we have to realize it isn’t a power issue, not at its core.
One of the most difficult parts of middle-management is we are given enough authority to be held responsible but not enough power to effect systemic change.
Third, everyone you work with is impacted by the toxic culture, not just you.
Two truths exist, everyone has been infected by the unhealthy system and if you get the benefit of the doubt then they should to.
We can’t force change.
But not having power doesn't mean you don't have authority.
Authority is powerful when multiplied.
