The Path of the Middle Manager

This week, I thought I would share a excerpt of "The Middle Matters: A Toolkit for Middle Managers." The Doer-Leader-Influencer framework is the center piece of the book and the key to understanding and success in the middle.

Coming up in The Middle Matters Collaborative:

• Friday 3/21 "What's Your Problem" Meet-up at 12n ET
• Friday 4/4 Book Discussion - Carol Dweck's "Mindset" at 12n ET

I remember, from early in my career, a fellow junior colleague once saying, “I would be a much better Vice President than a manager.” I doubt this was true at that point in his career. Most people early in their careers vastly underestimate the challenges of leading and influencing faced by senior leaders.

Our innate sense of being the hero of our own story often leads us to believe we can jump right into leadership. All we need to do is tell everyone why our plans are better and why what they’re doing isn’t going to work. We think we can influence people based on the obvious brilliance of our ideas. It’s not that easy.

The path of the middle manager, from doing to leading to influencing, can be counterintuitive at times. To influence you must first establish credibility, which comes from repeatedly and consistently demonstrating you can do the work asked of you—that is, mastering the role of doer. From there you must demonstrate you can create capacity to get even more work done through the efforts of a team—thus mastering the role of leader. Finally, you have to gain commitment from peers and senior leaders to support and even champion your ideas—mastering the role of influencer.

So, are you better off fighting your boss, trying to prove that accounting for every penny in the budget is unnecessary? Do you gain an advantage by stubbornly insisting you have a better way? Or do you take the long view, leaning into what’s asked of you, with the goal of building the credibility, the capacity, and the commitment to allow you to fulfill your purpose and potential? Said another way, if no one trusts you, they won’t listen to you. If no one will listen, you won’t be able to make your ideas a reality. All that brilliance is worth very little if it can’t get any traction.

The Doer-Leader-Influencer path provides a roadmap for how to grow in your career and how to get back on track if you find yourself lost. Creating credibility, capacity and commitment will make you stand out.

Read "The Middle Matters: A Toolkit for Middle Managers" for a variety of tools and advice on succeeding at each of these key roles.