Middle Management Is Hard
Lately, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the challenges of middle management, particularly after a conversation with a former coworker. Even though this individual isn’t a middle manager, their insights about feeling constant pressure from leadership really got me thinking. They described how leadership consistently pushes for higher performance and demands results, often without understanding the realities on the ground. It struck me that, while they bear the weight of these demands from leadership, middle managers face a similar pressure but from multiple directions.
Being middle management is incredibly challenging. You are expected to balance pressure from all directions above, below, and even from the sides. My experience comes from the tech industry, but I believe these observations resonate across multiple sectors. Middle managers are the glue that holds organizations together, but they are often underappreciated and left to face unique struggles. Sandwiched between company leadership and employees, they must navigate conflicting demands, limited authority, and, at times, an overwhelming sense of isolation.
In middle management, you constantly find yourself wedged between the high expectations of leadership and the needs of your subordinates. You're tasked with executing strategies from top management while simultaneously motivating and managing your team to deliver results. At times, you may agree with your team’s frustrations and concerns, yet you're still forced to put on a smile and enforce decisions that come from above, even when you didn’t have a hand in making them. It’s not uncommon for middle managers to find out about tough decisions such as budget cuts, reassignments, or new initiatives at the last moment, just like the rest of their team. This disconnection fuels a feeling of being left out or even powerless, yet you’re still tasked with being accountable for the success of your team.
The Many Pressures Facing Middle Management
Middle managers face a unique set of challenges that stem from being positioned between upper management and front-line teams. This intermediary space creates a range of pressures that require constant navigation.
1. Top-Down Pressure:
At the core of middle management's struggles is top-down pressure. Leadership has high expectations for performance, efficiency, and goal achievement. Strategic decisions are made at the higher levels, but middle managers are often left in the dark, tasked with implementing orders without being part of the decision-making process. For example, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, in their studies of employee engagement, found that middle managers, particularly those with five to ten years of experience, are often disillusioned because they feel undervalued. They’re given tasks to execute but have little say in policy-making, causing frustration and disengagement. Many employees under middle managers don’t realize that these managers are frequently just as frustrated with the decisions from the top.
Middle managers, being closest to the workplace's actual dynamics, often have the most practical knowledge of what will and won’t work. However, they frequently find themselves informed about decisions after the fact and left to carry them out without the support or resources necessary for success. They are, in essence, expected to deliver results from policies in which they had no say.
2. Bottom-Up Frustrations:
On the flip side, middle managers bear the brunt of employee frustrations. For example, in the study by Zenger and Folkman, middle managers are often seen as the “face of management,” and when things go wrong or decisions don’t make sense, employees direct their complaints at these middle-tier leaders. Team members may not be aware that many of their objections are shared by their manager. As Anicich and Hirsh describe in their research on role-switching, middle managers are stuck in a “vertical code-switching” dilemma, where they must alternate between being an authoritative leader and a deferential subordinate, often within the same day.
This constant shifting takes a toll on mental and emotional well-being, leading to high levels of stress and emotional burnout. Middle managers are expected to maintain their team’s morale and motivation, even when upper management decisions leave them just as frustrated and powerless. They absorb complaints from below and directives from above with very little control of their own.
3. Side-to-Side Politics:
Middle managers also face significant peer pressure. Departments within organizations often operate in silos, and middle managers must compete with their peers for resources, recognition, and strategic visibility. Anicich and Hirsh emphasize that middle managers experience high levels of stress not only from above and below but also from their same-level colleagues. Whether it's negotiating resources, competing for development opportunities, or even juggling inter-departmental expectations, the middle manager experiences ongoing tension with little relief.
In highly competitive corporate environments, especially fast-paced industries like tech, collaboration often turns into a tug-of-war among middle managers, each vying for more bandwidth, budget, or visibility with leadership. If one department doesn’t deliver, the middle manager will feel the pressure from their leadership, even when the root cause of the issue is entirely external.
The Emotional Labor Involved
One of the most unseen aspects of middle management is its emotional toll. Julie Zhuo, who became a manager at Facebook (now Meta) at the young age of 25, recalls her early experience feeling like she was "in over her head." Zhuo reflects on the constant emotional labor required to support her subordinates while projecting confidence to her higherups. Like many middle managers, Zhuo initially believed that leadership meant projecting unwavering authority, but she found that approach ultimately alienating. Over time, she realized that successful management was much more about fostering collaboration than rigid top-down decision-making.
Middle managers often feel emotionally drained by the tension of mediating between the frustrations of their team and the demands of their leadership. Eric Anicich and Jacob B. Hirsh argue that middle managers experience high levels of "role conflict," where they're often caught between incompatible expectations. They must be empathetic to their subordinates while projecting confidence and competence to their superiors. This emotional balancing act places middle managers at a higher risk for burnout and mental health issues, including anxiety and depression, compared to employees at either end of the hierarchy.
The Isolation of Middle Management
Perhaps the most pervasive struggle faced by middle managers is the feeling of isolation. Both Zhuo and Zenger highlight how middle managers are often excluded from key strategic discussions. Many decisions are made at the executive leadership level, leaving middle managers responsible for enforcing and explaining these decisions, often without fully understanding them or having the opportunity to weigh in beforehand. The result is an overwhelming feeling of disconnect. You're expected to deliver results, but you’re not always given the tools or knowledge necessary to do so.
A study cited by Anicich and Hirsh involving over 21,000 employees revealed that middle managers reported higher rates of anxiety, stress, and burnout than those in lower or upper-level positions. This is compounded by the fact that middle managers lack the same support networks that senior executives or frontline employees might have available. Zhuo advises that in her own experience, middle managers need more access to leadership development and strategic involvement to feel less isolated and more connected to the larger mission.
What Can We Do to Improve Middle Management?
In my view, the traditional approach to managing middle managers just isn't cutting it anymore. The ongoing pressures and emotional strain that come from being sandwiched between leadership and teams need to be addressed. Here’s what I think can be done to alleviate some of these challenges.
1. Bring Middle Managers into Strategic Conversations Early
From what I’ve seen, one of the primary reasons middle managers feel disengaged is simply because they’re left out of major strategic decisions. As Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman point out, this disconnection makes their job ten times harder. If leadership wants to get the best out of middle managers, they need to be brought into the conversation from the start. Whether it’s helping to shape company policies or providing feedback on new initiatives, direction will stick far better if middle managers understand and feel a part of the “why” behind these decisions. Giving them this sense of ownership fosters better implementation and ensures strategic objectives are grounded in the realities of the workplace.
2. Recognize and Reward the Emotional Labor of Middle Management
Let’s face it, emotional labor is a huge part of a middle manager’s role and often goes unrecognized. These managers aren’t just managing tasks and project outcomes, they’re balancing the emotional well-being of their teams while meeting deadlines.
But unfortunately, this aspect of the job is often perceived as transactional something that just comes with the territory. This is where companies need to step up. Recognize the complexity of the role. We need to do more than just acknowledge it, we need to actively reward it. And by reward, I don’t mean just compensation, but through recognition, support systems, and creating work cultures that reinforce the value they bring. Providing mental health resources is also crucial because it helps middle managers cope with the stress and ensures their emotional well-being, which in turn benefits the entire team.
Conclusion
Middle management is often one of the toughest, most thankless jobs in any organization. These individuals are tasked with balancing competing expectations, processing complex emotions, and producing excellent results despite limited authority and frequent isolation. However, the good news is that these challenges are not set in stone they can be managed and improved upon.
To make middle management more effective and sustainable, we need to start by rethinking the role. Empowering them with decision-making autonomy, involving them earlier in strategic discussions, prioritizing their own leadership development, building supportive peer networks, and recognizing the weight of their emotional labor are all essential steps. While these changes require deliberate effort from leadership, they are essential if organizations want to get the most out of their middle-tier management.
As Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman have pointed out, middle managers aren’t disengaged because they lack ability they are disengaged because they aren’t managed well. The sooner organizations realize the centrality and importance of middle management, the sooner they can align themselves for sustainable success. After all, when middle managers thrive, so does the entire organization from the frontlines to the C-level.
Recommended Reading Materials
While making this article, I consulted multiple reading materials and papers to gain deeper insights into the challenges of middle management and strategies to overcome them. These resources provided me with useful frameworks and data that helped shape my understanding of this complex role.