Successful CEOs enable middle managers to transition quickly from team member to team leader, and adjust quickly to managing and leading their workmates.
While delivering a keynote speech to a room full of middle managers at a technology conference, I asked the audience to raise their hands if they loved being a middle manager. Unsurprisingly, and in all honesty, a bit disappointingly, less than half of the room raised their hands. Before I moved on, an audience member asked me if I was going to ask who hates being a middle manager. I replied with a cheeky attempt at light-heartedness, “I guess I know what your answer would be.” He nodded in agreement.
I assumed his discontentment was based on not being able to do the tech as much as he used to; that he was ‘off the tools’ now. Catching up with this gentleman after the session, I learned that his feeling of discontent was actually based more on neither being prepared well nor set up for success when he stepped into the role. He was promoted into the mid-level management role for his exceptional individual contribution, but not supported with adjusting to the role and its new responsibilities, such as leading and managing others.
In Stephen Covey’s renowned book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the notion of slow is fast can be frustrating for the busy CEO, but successful CEOs know that doing the heavy lifting at the front end of any initiative will ensure a more productive, more efficient, more profitable outcome. Three of Covey’s habits are especially helpful when considering stepping middle managers up for success:
- Habit 1 of 7: Be proactive – start before the start by ensuring the middle managers are fully supported before they even begin. This is achieved through succession planning backed by development initiatives.
- Habit 2 of 7: Begin with the end in mind – consider how you want the new middle manager to be performing at six months, twelve months, and two years. Clarity of role is one part; clarity of performance expectations avoids costly performance management issues. Clarity leads to earlier buy-in and better engagement with turning strategy into action.
- Habit 4 of 7: Think win-win – create the systems that will support you and middle managers.
When Stephen rallied his senior executive team to allocate time with new managers within the newly formed department, relationships formed early and led to more efficient onboarding. The time spent guiding, mentoring and coaching the middle managers in their early days saved time and money, and kept the CEO and the executive team out of the weeds.
Middle managers who struggle to adjust often fall prey to procrastination when faced with decision-making, deferring to senior leadership and avoiding taking responsibility, even relying on the C-suite for extra assurance.
As Stephen, the CEO, shared, “By building the relationships early, taking that time right up front, we ended out having more productive middle managers.”
Promoting people is the main way organisations acknowledge and recognize contribution, and retain great people and talent, but the promotion alone does not enable a middle manager to hit the ground running.
The most confident and productive middle managers are those who have actively participated in an onboarding program that supports their transition from team member to team leader. They have not just been channeled into the talent pipeline, they are developed prior to, and as they are taking up mid-level management roles.
According to McKinsey, 40-50% of new leaders fail within 18 months of their promotion or appointment, and yet most organisations expect these leaders to hit targets within the first 90 or 100 days.[1] When an organization does not have a thorough onboarding and leadership development plan, it’s inevitable that most new middle managers will fail.
Letting go of operational tasks can be challenging for the freshly-minted middle manager, so mentoring and coaching can be helpful. Additionally, learning to delegate, as we’ll cover in more detail in Strategy Seven, sets the middle manager up for confidently letting go, and maintaining positive team relationships.
Australia, like many countries with an egalitarian culture, allows for a level of informality between boss and employee that is often enjoyed and seen as a positive attribute of the culture. This does, however, result in a very common issue for middle managers and leaders who are promoted into roles where they then have to lead and manage their workmates and colleagues. Jealousy from those who were unsuccessful in securing the higher role is one tricky situation that can arise, but the middle manager also needs to adjust, shift, and amplify their level of authority so they can be fully effective in their new role. This includes delegating and providing performance feedback to those who had been their equals, their workmates.
To ensure middle managers shift quickly into their new roles and become high-performing, CEOs must support and guide them. A mentoring approach can work brilliantly. This will result in middle managers adjusting quickly, building the confidence they need for their roles, while not becoming over-reliant on the CEO for assurance.
Successful CEOs and other senior executives are open to sharing how they have learned to hold others to account, even the toughest and most cringe-worthy lessons. Being vulnerable and sharing what hasn’t worked—and the related lessons they learned—is invaluable, and more often than not allows the middle manager to see the CEO or senior executive in a more humane light, increasing trust and respect, and strengthening the relationship. Demonstrating vulnerability is a strength.
As Brené Brown, famed researcher and storyteller, has found and shared in her book, Daring Greatly: “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable but they’re never weakness.”
Peter pulled his new middle manager, Jason, aside after the whole team's quarterly gathering to share his observations and his own experiences. Jason was overreaching with his authority and dictating orders; and when something wasn’t done quickly enough, he’d bark his disappointment publicly. Peter shared that he had observed Jason behaving this way and had concerns that this style of leading would soon lead to others not following. Peter verified this by sharing his own experiences in his first few months in a leadership role. Peter thought he needed to assert his power and authority early and loudly, so his team knew who was the boss. Within a few short weeks, Peter had multiple resignations and transfer requests sitting on his desk.
A willing colleague finally pointed out that it was his dictatorial and authoritarian approach that was causing this result. Peter quickly added that he was grateful for the lesson: it was a tough one, but it taught him to reconsider how he was leading his team.
Jason, a tad embarrassed, was nonetheless grateful, and Peter and Jason agreed to meet the next week to look at leadership development options, including understanding communication and behavior styles.
These strategy questions may help you:
- Who among your middle managers is still doing operational work that could be delegated?
- Who tends to procrastinate, and why do you think they are procrastinating?
- What feedback has been gathered about the mid-level onboarding process?
- Who else in your network could be a valuable mentor for your middle managers?
- What are the metrics—engagement scores, turnover, etc.—and analyses of the data since the middle manager started in the role?
[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/ the-organization-blog/it-really-isnt-about-100-days
