5 Critical steps to transform Middle Managers into Agents of Change
Renata Fester
Strategic Career Coach - Empowering Professionals to Navigate Career Transitions, Unlock Career Growth & Build a Career You Love | Career Development Expert | Speaker | Author
The past number of years has seen a range of changes in the employment arena. The workplace landscape has changed and continues to change in the aftermath of the pandemic. The economic climate continues to inform and dictate the changes that have occurred and will continue to occur.
So, what does this say about how organisations transform themselves and look to leaner structures, more efficient service delivery and more flexible working environments. What does this mean for a cohort of staff that have traditionally been the vital link, connecting the small group of executives at the top of an organisation with the vast ranks of workers who were actually responsible for the bulk of the organization's output.
As organizations shift toward a more distributed workforce long-term, the traditional role of a middle manager of monitoring productivity and optimizing individual performance is becoming increasingly redundant. The conventional 9-to-5 work model is growing obsolete.
Middle management has been viewed by many as a direct obstacle to creating an environment which supports total cohesion in organisations.
?Middle managers are often seen as:
Despite the traditionally transactional nature of their role and the emergence of the matrix model which failed to produce the expected panacea for the modern organisation, this group of managers have grown in numbers and in skills. They are now emerging as mid-level leaders, successfully spearheading change, precisely because of the skills that were honed when, as middle managers, their authority and accountability were asymmetric.
The four new role imperatives for middle management includes
So why are middle managers now in the spotlight? Middle managers or now more accurately referred to as mid-level leaders, are best placed to manage employee reaction to change and support them on the front line. They can mitigate the element of shock which inevitably accompanies change, and can prepare the workforce for change, when change is likely to affect them.
These individuals will however require a high degree of emotional intelligence to support employees. Good communication and people skills will be required to convey the vision for the outcome of changes and the ability to demonstrate that there is light at the end of the tunnel in the change process.
Mid-level leaders’ direct interaction with employees makes them ideal candidates to motivate their team to accept change and move on to the stage of making it work.
Organizations must see the potential of their mid-level leaders and begin to define a value-added role as change agents responsible for the growth of the organisation and quality of the products and services delivered as a cultural norm and provide them with development opportunities to fulfil their new responsibilities.
?Instead of removing or ignoring middle management, turn them into mid-level leaders who become the catalysts for change to improve the ?organisational? culture by:
Provide middle managers with a system to lead as change agents.
Transforming middle managers into change agents requires a systematic process, which dissolves traditional management boundaries and replaces these with an empowered and team-oriented state of accountability for organizational performance.?
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?This process involves five critical steps:
Step 1: Empowerment
Rather than playing it safe for fear of losing their jobs or the ramifications of making mistakes, middle managers need to decide as individuals and as a team to be self-empowered.?
Instead of waiting for upper management to define their role, middle managers must collectively define their leadership role. Ultimately, middle managers must become accountable for the performance of the organization in satisfying customer needs and meeting organizational objectives.
?Step 2: Creating a Common Vision of Excellence
Once middle managers have chosen to be self-empowered, it is necessary for them to articulate their leadership vision. They will need to get input from all of their internal and external customers and articulate the benefits that all their customers, including their direct reports, employees, senior management, and the external customers, will receive. Their vision must then be transformed into critical success factors, which describe key areas of performance that they require of themselves to be successful in satisfying their internal and external customers.
Their vision and critical success factors are not only the basis for making decisions as a cross-functional team but must be the benchmark for measuring their effectiveness as leaders. It is their team vision and the resulting critical success factors that reflect organizational success, not the accomplishment of individual department goals.
?Step 3: New Rules for Playing the Organizational Game
Most middle managers have been conditioned through traditional organizational norms to protect the interests of their own department or division, often at the cost of organizational success. This has left middle management fragmented and territorial, breeding fear and unhealthy competition among employees. Two new rules break down these territorial walls and bond this group together in pursuit of their vision: interlocking accountability and team representation.
?Step 4: Implementing a Continuous Improvement Process
Based on their assessment of critical success factors, mid-level leaders should choose their own improvement projects to strengthen the quality of the service they provide to their internal and external customers. Generally, this includes improving their own operational teamwork, as well as improving operational systems. This will allow them to reduce crisis management, streamline working processes, and improve operational processes which they and their direct reports have identified.
?It is important to measure improvements, acknowledge success, and report successes to their teams and senior management.?This evidence of continuous improvement will gain the trust and respect of the team and the organization’s senior management
Step 5: Developing and Retaining Peak Performers
After identifying and working towards a clear direction, the middle management team must identify and develop future leaders of the organization. Instead of being threatened by upcoming leaders, they must view their own success in terms of the degree of depth that it is creating for the organization.?
Mid-level leaders must design a systematic and continuous development process which includes training, coaching and mentoring in order to assure that the highest levels of talent, creativity and performance remain inside the organization. Additionally, mid-level leaders must provide guidance and coaching to assure that all managers within the organization are coaching and developing their direct reports.
?If you need to transform your middle managers into agents of change, why not Book some time and let's talk about how I can support you.