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Middle Managers Behaving Badly – How To Stop This Damaging Your Results

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More and more I hear and read about a looming crisis of leadership at the middle management level and the inevitable resulting increase in, poor performance, accidents and production mistakes and hence declining profits.

I’m afraid to say these observations are not just rumours. In my own work as a management consultant I’ve noticed a distinct increase in negative behaviours in many middle managers in all sorts of companies.

In this short article I’ll explain what I mean by “negative behaviours” offer suggestions on what senior managers can do about it.

Over the past four years I’ve noticed the following kinds of behaviours from many middle managers:

· Increasingly using harsh, abrupt language: “Don’t be so stupid”. “I don’t care what the problem is just get it fixed”

· Becoming more dictatorial (unwilling to listen) “Yes, I know all that now do it this way”

· Putting time pressure on people by continually asking when jobs will be completed and why things are taking so long

· Losing tempers and insulting others when things go wrong

· Unwilling to take the time to read, seek advice and think things out carefully

· Creating a them and us culture: “We decide and direct and you do”.

· Using more of the fear factor: “Perform or you’re out”.

If you’re a senior managers reading you’ll be disappointed and even shocked. The tragedy is that the middle managers I meet are excellent people – they are not behaving like this on purpose. When you point out the danger and destructiveness of these behaviours they acknowledge it and change for a few days. However, in a few weeks they forget and go back to unhelpful behaviours. Why?

In a nutshell, middle managers are under more pressure to perform than I have seen in a long time. For example, · In the past five years, levels of management have been stripped out resulting in middle managers doing more and more. · The constant downsizing, having to apply “for your own job” and frequent relocation have numbed many people. Some just don’t care anymore. · Many middle managers are now forced to be contractors and work in a culture where “you are only as good as your last job” and loyalty and long-term thinking is not seen to be valued.

Middle management is now overstretched to breaking point both physically and mentally, hence the behaviours listed above. This is having an adverse effect on the supervisors they manage and in turn on al their people. Another tragedy is that most middle managers won’t own up that they are under this pressure. So senior managers don’t know about it.

For me it’s the effective leadership of senior managers that will prevent the coming crisis. Here are just six straightforward steps senior managers should take now.

1. Initiate a short, anonymous survey to measure the extent of pressure on middle managers.

2. Take even more time to discuss in detail the workload and targets of direct reports. Probe to see if people are accepting unreasonable workloads just to please you as the boss. Make sure your direct reports do this with their people too.

3. Deliberately create situations where you as a senior manager can admit that you can’t cope and need help. People will not own up if you don’t do it first.

4. Find ways to show middle managers that you value them as people not just a resource. Especially when they are non-core staff. Yes, short-term contracting as a mode of employment is increasing but that doesn’t mean we should treat managers who are contractors as less valuable than full time staff.

5. Provide the time for management training.

6. Here’s the toughest of all. When the Board trims the budget for a project and you’ve struggled to find ways to do more with less and you realise you can’t, you should tell them. This is the ultimate source of unreasonable pressure. Don’t allow it to flow down hill.

Yes, we need a leaner business model for the modern competitive and fast-paced economy. Yes, we must keep pushing for better performance from everyone. But does lean have to be mean – do we have to lose the human touch? Indeed, doesn’t success in this era require senior managers to be even more human?

Copyright (c) 2004 Dr William Robb. Electronic distribution to ezines, friends and colleagues permitted but publication in print prohibited without written permission

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