My reflections on Middle Managers

Who wants to be a middle manager?
Is it a shame to be a middle manager or it is something that you can be proud of?
Well, to my mind the answer, in fact, depends on the timing, how long you have stuck at this position for, the company size, your influence and involvement into the company’s life and your personal demands that satisfy you totally.

Prima facie, middle managers seem to play an intermediate role between top management and employees, those who work at operational level. When the strategy or policy is written on the top, it comes to middle managers to implement it successfully through the excellent performance of the staff. Thus, they are vital elements that represent and interpret the established management policy or strategy and articulate them to employees. Consequently, middle managers are “viewed as suppliers of information and consumers of decisions made by top-level managers.” (Westley, 1990)

Moreover, referring to Balogun’s article, middle managers are change intermediaries rather than “implementers” or simply, “change recipients”. (Balogun, 2003) The author pays much attention on middle manager’s interpretation of change and states its importance for actual change outcome and organizational survival; this gives roots to strategic sensemaking and sensegiving.

Over the decades, the literature on strategic management is being aligned with strategic sensemaking and sensegiving, Sensemaking is the way managers understand, interpret, and create sense for themselves; whereas, sensegiving is concerned with their attempts to influence the outcome, to communicate their thoughts about the change to others. (Rouleau, 2005) That is why the key role of the middle manager is rarely well understood since it is related to sensemaking and sensegiving; communicating when convincing both employees and top management; interaction when being a bridge between low and top organizational level in the company.

However, the guest lecture leading by Mica Wulff Kamm, the Head of Global Product Management at TeliaSonera, made me think about middle managers not only as “change interpreters” and “intermediates”, but someone who can be considered in innovative perspective.
After working 11 years as a middle manager, she seems to be very enthusiastic and proud of being middle manager for so long.

I do not think I would like to be a middle manager, but looking at Mica Wulff Kamm, her courage, her leadership behavior as well as her practical example and experience makes me be deep in thought about it. Through her working experience she showed that middles can be not only information transmitters and strategy implementers, but in order to be successful, they can and should have an impact on the decisions made at the top, they need to contribute by suggesting changes, and finally they have to be sure that they are involved in the framing of change.

In addition to this, Balogun (2003) in his article “From Blaming the Middle to Harnessing its Potential: Creating Change Intermediaries”, argues that middle managers play a great role in change implementation and also, are capable of contributing at strategic level. This consequently relates to empowerment of middle managers within the organization, the way they influence strategic conversation and promote out - of box – thinking.

During the presentation Mica pointed out some tips that help to be on the right track, namely: choose your boss as carefully as your organization (“right bus with right driver”); clarify the mandate (are the people and targets right? is it growing business? how well you can do your job?); work on the network, get to know others, their capacity; find the balance between operations and leadership; and ultimately get involved.
I would like to finish my reflections on Middle Managers and their role within the organization with suggestions Mica made during her presentation: Be there when the ground shakes! Be involved! Work on the network!


Reference

Balogun, J. (2003). From Blaming the Middle to Harnessing its Potential: Creating Change Intermediaries, British Journal of Management, vol. 14, 69-83.

Rouleau, L. (2005). Micro-Practices of Strategic Sensemaking and Sensegiving: How Middle Managers Interpret and Sell Change Every Day, vol.42, 1413-1441.

Westley, F. T. (1990). Middle Managers and Strategy: Micro-Dynamics of Inclusion, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 11 (5), 337-351.