Back to Leadership!

I was not the first and I definitely won't be the last to find it difficult to fill the "Middle Management" role!

One of the clearest public examples of this mismatch was the Jose Mourinho tenure at Chelsea and Inter Milan. Loved by the fans, respected by his team but seen as a "maverick" or "lose cannon" by his management team!

The challenge often comes about because "the workers" look for a champion to represent them and challenge "senior management" while senior management are looking for someone to ensure their ideas are implemented. Success is obviously the great leveller but often not enough to ensure the "Workers Champion" can survive! The "Management Pawn", often despised by the workers will usually find safety in the arms of the senior management regardless of performance as they are, after all simply doing what they are told!

Is there a happy medium? The art (that I struggled to perfect!) is to balance the demands from above with the expectations from below. You may consider it the other way around but that would be a mistake! Many "Workers Champions" start to believe they are working for their team and their team will start to make "demands" of them. It is important to remember that these demands are actually an expectation; a desire; a request.

Demands come from above! These maybe challenged in private and should be! Expectations come from below and should be managed empathetically with a realistic role defined for the middle manager! Unwittingly the middle manager is often hung out to dry by the very people he is trying to help as their expectations slowly increase with each "battle" the manager has with senior management!

The key for the middle manager is to set out the ground rules with the team very early on. A balance can be struck but only if everyone understands the rules and plays by them.