3 "Promotion Keys" for Middle Manager

Yes! Middle manager job sucks!

In the eyes of others, these were the perfect job as a white-collar middle manager in an organization. The future is bright, and opportunity for advancement is excellent. However, it turns out that middle managers have it worse career development in the company. Types of workers who are more prone to depression, my focus is usually on the misery of those in the middle of a corporation’s hierarchy.

Wikipedia stated the middle manager is the intermediate management of a hierarchical organization that is subordinate to the executive management and responsible for at least two lower levels of junior staff.

They have dual roles, typically include carrying out the strategic directives of upper-level managers at the operational level, supervising subordinate and employees to ensure smooth functioning of the organization. I called it “sandwich-level.”

It is reasonable that middle manager would go off on a long journey for promotion with only a handful of "high" position available in an organization. Personally, I do not think there is a timeframe that is too long to stay in a job. However, on the other end, I have seen the middle manager who had been in their jobs over a decade.

Some careers show there is light at the end of the tunnel, but most of the time, not the middle manager. There may be a small increase in salary but rarely have a big salary jump. On the contrary, they simply get older and older.

When you get the promotion to middle manager, it means a pay raise at the beginning of your career.  However, unless you work hard to develop the skills that need to be successful, otherwise you may less employable in a few years down the career road. As a middle manager, you start to lose your competitive edge with others.

The middle manager stuck in a workplace that offers no appreciation or acknowledgment for their work. An everyday task seems to them like a burden, not an achievement. The middle manager thought that their ability is underestimated, work overwork, opinions are not being heard, career stagnation and having a meaningless work. In a worst case, they also start to complain about their direct superior. They noticed no particular necessary quality as their superior either.

Recently, Robert (not his real name) has been in competition for a promotion to the senior manager as division head, which he did not get it. The promotion went to someone (his colleague) with less experience than he has. He told me this “If one is unwilling to participate in organization politics, this is just how it turn out!”. One day, he realizes that those efforts and energy could be better place toward a new job search. Robert hates his job as middle manager so much. His job is to execute poor decisions made by others and also takes responsibility for something that not fall under his fault. He suffered the most office political turmoil than anyone else in the organization.  He used to offer himself several times to management to take on more challenging assignments as project leader, a particular task that no one would pick up. However, most often all his requests were hitting the walls and fell on deaf ears.

These kinds of lasting stressful situations make an endless number of middle managers anxious and frustrated?

How many middle managers have already hit the "Promotion" ceiling? How many middle managers should have a good leader to coach them up the ladder?

In fact, most of us across the hierarchy are not good in leadership. Even with excellent leadership skills, it would not be of much help for those as middle managers. Always, there will be functional failures almost in all organizations, and the greatest damage and impact is always pointing to the middle managers.

I try to summarize the common issues that middle managers face in below, 

• Instruction from leader is not clear and always change
• The direction of the company only makes known inside the brain of the owner or the top executives only. Hence, the corporate strategy & principle are not communicated clearly & vague to the employee.
• Leader bypasses the hierarchy chain of command, e.g. senior manager overrides the organization chart structure and control directly. Lower level staff avoids the immediate superior report to the next higher level directly.
• The culture of blaming e.g. Boss take the credit and blame his subordinate for the wrong result.
• Severe nepotism, favoritism makes the department increasing difficult to manage. We always hear “blue eyes boy”.
• The new generation (younger workforce) at the entry level of the organization, increasing difficult to understand and manage. These are the workforce that reports to the middle manager.

How to jump out from middle management?

I think at least there are 3 points you must remember!

#1. Middle managers must loyal to their direct boss

When I was in military college, the first principle that every trainee must learn was how to be obedient. Ultimately, the military training must make you accept the absolute obedience. The first introduction class for a newbie that I attended, we changed our name to a number, hair style changed to only one type of army hairstyle, everything change to anonymous or entirely lacking marked individuality. This move is to ensure everybody throw away our self-identity, self-centered behavior that presumes more easily to foster team spirit and the team goal. It is the same in the middle management. If every middle manager only focuses on their achievement, silo thought & action, the whole team spirit, cohesiveness, combat power will be in discount. Regardless how good your skills and ability is, you still need to work as a team.

Most of the time when you do not get the important job or attention from your superior, the profound reason is that you have the loyalty issue at least in the mind of your superior. The boss do not trust you as a person yet.

The best middle manager is the one who is the “smart-type” middle manager. The “smart-type” middle manager knows how to solve a problem with his cognitive ability while also know how to think critically to maintain loyalty to his superior. They make sure the boss does not need to worry at all when the job is hand to the “smart-type” middle manager. They provide truth feedback without hiding any fact or political agenda. They are the source of insider news and they protect the interest of their superior. They also take care the emotional needs of their superior by borrowing a pair of attentive ears as an excellent listener.  Promotion will always reserve for this type of middle manager. What! It is unfair, you scream out loud. So what! This rule is the unwritten rule; you must embrace it.

Nowadays, the “cow-type” middle manager no longer can survive in today fast paced world. “Cow-type” middle manager that I was mimicking to cow produce milk (result) every day with enormous effort, but only having grass as the low-value reward. Cow-type is the worst paid type of workforce in the organization.

So, make sure you loyal to your superior.

#2. Middle managers must learn the soft skills

Typically, middle managers play a connecting role. They continued to play a fire-fighting role to overcome the challenges thrown at most of the middle manager. When you become a middle manager, the transition can be very difficult for a  technical person who has a role of personal achievement, but now need to switch the position to achieve results through others.

For the middle manager, they need to learn the rope of achieving results through others. That means, supporting the productivity of direct reports over personal productivity. I can understand that those days your performance was measured by personal achievement, but as a middle manager your performance was measured on team performance or others performance. The middle manager started to lose their motivation & sense of achievement from solving a problem (achieving results). Their achievement frequency is lesser and lesser; it is common that it turn to suffering from “lack of sense of achievement”. Bear in mind, this can happen to those who used to have lots of subordinates and today change the function to those very specific skills department that only one or two subordinates the most.

Communicating strategies and goals, providing feedback and coaching, monitoring and tracking progress and more of that are the daily routines. Many new middle managers underestimate the time and energy required to be an effective leader to perform the above in their daily work.

The middle manager needs to polish or master the soft skills, including negotiations, managing up, resource planning, tracking, thinking strategically, coaching and something like that. A middle manager has a need to demonstrate or exercise these skills.

#3. Middle managers must believe in active connection

When key players (stakeholders) become invested in your career, good things will happen. If you think you cannot possibly add one more activity to your 12 hour day, then remember that everyone else is also working 12 hours. An active connection to the right person can put your career on the fast promotion! Please remember this golden rule.

Promotion is a function of F(X),

Performance (Capability), Perceived Image (Personal Branding), Connection (Cable-lity)

You must have performance as the result, but only have the performance is no longer differentiate yourself to anybody in the organization since it is what contractual obligation. As an employee, you are hired to produce results. It is just a price of admission to the arena of competition for a promotion. All your peers are doing the same thing in fact. You are no difference to others. Middle managers must gain all the positive perceived image from the team, subordinates, peers & higher ranking officer. Example, team player, helpful, the collaborative is the quality associated when people mentioned about your name. The connection is what makes the difference here. Favorable contact middle managers with senior executives or decision makers as I called it “cable-lity.”

Sometimes, the question of “how” and “why” are easy to understand, and it is pretty common sense to all of us. However, in the real world, how many people practice it? I bet on it 9 out of 10 know it, but not practice it for whatever reason. You no need to be perfect here; you only need to do a little bit extra. It is good enough to advance because many people lazy to do just that bit extra.

“Always do the best with whatever level of responsibility that I was afforded, and to take less desirable assignments that others might not want”

Got feedback?

What was the only one reason you promoted from technician/ executive to a middle manager?

Why should you get the next promotion?

I'd sure love to hear what you think about my content and above questions! Just drop a few sentences to the comment box below to share your thoughts!

• Read previous articles here 

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Darrell Tan is attaching to a corporate profession in Business Development & Strategic Planning. He is also a Certified Professional Trainer (CPT), Certified Train the Trainer, Certified Business Analyst and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) in progress. He believes & inspired by “Anyone shall be given a chance to learn hence transform learning into long-lasting growth; building productive change!” 

He is passionate in organizational development (OD) & business transformation activities. 

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