Role of Middle Managers - Guest Lecture

Middle managers play a key role in any organization both in positive and negative sense. The main questions are that why middle managers are so important and what are the qualities of the middle managers which can lead to a successful organization.

The importance of the middle managers lies in the fact that they act in different roles between the top management and the lower managerial staff. they are the policy communicators, decision makers and some times implementers as well. These roles require some basic qualities by the middle management which they need to demonstrate.

The Guest lecture focused on these qualities and this leads to the answer of the second question. these qualities can be 1. Communication Abilities 2. Decision Making Power 3. Flexibility and Team Management

Communication Abilities

One approach where the importance of the communication abilities can be seen is that when one organization has to develop its competitive advantage all of its operations should be align in one direction. Apart from other organizational factors, the communication from the middle managers to their subordinates is a major factor. As in the organizations the information flow is hierarchical, hence it totally depends on the middle management that how much information do they filter and how they deliver it to their subordinates.  Hence managers with good communication abilities know that how they have to deal with the problem of information flow in the organization.

The other perspective is that during the time of change the role of middle managers in terms of communication is enhanced so that if there are layoffs taking place or restructuring is taking place, they have to inform the employees in such a way that there is no or very less chaos among the other employees.

Decision Making Power

Decision making power is always there with the middle managers. In some organizations it may be to a great extent and in other's it may be limited but the question here is that how to utilize that power and not how much of it should be? I would like to relate it to the change management. The decision of the top management to for example lay off the employees is normally implemented by the middle management. Now, apart from the communication ability they have to decide these who will be those to leave the organization. Here the wrong use of power can lead to a situation where other employees who are needed to be part of the change process might also leave the organization. so the use of power, in such a way that the situation remains under control and employees does not go out of just because of personal liking and disliking of the middle managers is very important. So managers have to communicate at this point as well that why a decision was taken and what are the advantages/disadvantages of those decisions.

   Flexibility and Team Management

Flexibility here refers to the fact that the ultimate purpose of the middle managers has to be that they themselves and their subordinates are working for the organizational goals and not the personal goals. So the role of middle managers has not to be authoritative always. they have to look for the feedback from different teams under them so that those teams also feel themselves the part of the organization and take the organizational goals as their own goals or at least prefer the organizational goals over the personal goals. When there is flexibility on the part of middle managers and subordinates feel it as a two way process in stead of the feeling that they have to do whatever is being asked by the top management; there is always less inertia during the period of organizational change. This sense of flexibility and team management is required always but it become more important when the organization is growing or is going through any kind of change.

Some times when organizations are going thr0ugh restructuring and  removing layers of hierarchy they feel that middle management is a only a burden on the organization but the fact is that middle management is even more important now than ever before.

  Ref:

• Sujunsky, J.G. (2008) Successful leaders inspire action through language. Tooling and Production.
• Balogun, J. (2003) From Blaming the Middle to Harnessing its Potential: Creating Change Intermediaries. British Academy of Management
• Kaplan, Robert S.; Norton, David P.Publication: Boston, Mass. Harvard Business School Press, Translating Strategy Into Action
• Huy, N. Q. (2002) Emotional Balancing of Organizational Continuity and Radical Change, Administrative Science Quarterly