This week, I’m really pleased to welcome another colleague and good friend to share my blog, Gordon Tinline. Gordon is a Director of Robertson Cooper and a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. Most of his work in the last four or five years has been helping organisations reduce stress and realise bottom-line benefits through well-being improvement. Increasingly this work focuses on the links between leadership behaviour and staff well-being. Over to you Gordon…
Middle management is so often the forgotten layer in organisations – the focus is always on high profile senior leaders and those subject to the pressures of the frontline – whether that be police officers on the street, Northern Rock bank tellers or nurses in Accident and Emergency. But in reality, being a middle manager is just as difficult – in many cases, more difficult.
My work on well-being as a Director of Cary’s university spin-off company, Robertson Cooper has shown that those in middle management positions tend to experience demands from both above and below. This is often compounded by a feeling of getting all the grief without the power to influence the root causes of many of the problems faced.
Picture the scene: Your boss is on your back and asking you to justify last month’s results… “Oh and by the way, can you also dig up some information to support the strategic change initiative I’m working on at the moment?” Piling on the pressure, your staff keep asking you why they are not being kept in the picture about all the recent changes that they perceive as being designed to make their lives difficult. You are seen by them as ‘the problem’ in that you clearly know what’s going on and are just not telling them. Of course, they can’t see your perspective – you don’t know much more than they do, and when you ask your boss he doesn’t seem to know either – but tells you to stay positive and keep morale high. So it’s back to square one!
So what are your options? A. Get promoted, but be careful what you wish for unless you are heading directly for the top tier!! B. Keep sympathising with your staff and tell them you know how they feel – that it’s all down to the organisation and your boss. But then don’t be surprised when they rate you as a weak manager in your next 360 appraisal and your relationship with your boss deteriorates. C. Chill out and try not to let it get to you – it’ll soon be the weekend and you can forget it all for at least half a day before you start preparing for the week ahead and checking your blackberry in case anything has occurred to your boss on his Sunday stroll.
Of course, none of these options are really going to get you anywhere on their own. The answers lie in building open and constructive relationships upwards, downwards and sideways. Get closer to your boss and find out what it is that’s driving his behaviour – what are his real goals and what makes him tick. Start to join this up with the needs of those you manage – make things more transparent for them. This is not always easy and you will need to devote time to it as a specific goal…….on top of your current workload.
But this is my point- the best middle managers are able to step back from the day-to-day tasks and multiple demands from above and below. They make time to consider the vital role that they play as an ‘operator’ of many of the organisation’s strategic aims and policies; that is, by taking a different perspective middle managers can start to see themselves as the lynchpin of delivery, as opposed to a pawn for more senior managers to move around on a whim.
And finally, option (c) above is not entirely facile – the middle manager needs to learn to switch off. Work pressures may be endless, but you have to believe that you are not failing (yourself or your employer) by not being able to work endlessly to keep everyone happy. If you fall into this trap the result will be a downward spiral of performance and health where no one wins.
Gordon Tinline
