The strategic role of middle management

If we were to believe everything that was fashionable, middle managers would be a thing of the past, and have a negative influence on businesses. Reducing middle management should therefore bring down costs and free up the creativity within the organization. Is this really the case?

Reducing the number of middle managers has generally yielded disappointing results.
– Middle managers have been the first in the firing line during restructuring programs over the last few years. Although they represent only 5%of employees, they account for 20% of redundancies!
– But these restructuring programs have not delivered their promised results. In more than half the cases, productivity reduced or stagnated.

The explanation for these disappointing results is that middle managers play a key role in strategy.
– Recent studies have shown that successful strategies were often the result of initiatives taken by operational team members.
– Middle managers play a major role in the success of these initiatives. Indeed, middle managers are perfectly positioned within the company to bridge the gap between senior management's strategic intentions and operational realities. They are therefore able to identify strategic opportunities and see them through.

Optimizing middle managers’ contribution to strategy implies a change of attitude.
– Middle managers must develop competencies that improve the pertinence of their strategic initiatives.
– Senior executives must overcome their traditional reticence towards middle managers’ initiatives.