Transformation Evangelist & Coach. Head of Culture, Change & OD, HR Innovations at Bayer AG.
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Lately, it seems that organizations are under siege from all angles: a global pandemic, accelerated technological advancement and increased speed of adaptation to new market realities. The call for visionary and purpose-driven leadership of top executives is often provided as an answer brought forward quickly in these times of increased volatility and uncertainty. No doubt, strong leadership at the top is necessary. However, there may be another answer.
For most company transformations, we tend to focus on the commitment from the top while activating employees at the grassroots level. However, one level is missing: the level of middle management, the level that receives some of the greatest pressures from both the top and the bottom of the organization. Middle management is often overlooked in some cases, sometimes even neglected as the fundamental glue and transmission mechanism. Yet this layer might have the greatest impact on culture and change since the managers on this level sense the true pulse of their people.
To build resilient companies, I believe we need more realistic leaders at all levels of the organization, leaders who can translate a high-level vision into actionable plans while having a realistic picture of their people's daily routines and challenges as well as an understanding of what motivates their people in achieving results.
Top-level executives tend to set direction and serve as visible role models of change, but they often lack a realistic picture of what is truly happening inside their organizations. They rely on filtered reports and engagement data that only shows the sum of answers to questions rather than getting at the heart of the organization. Middle managers, on the other hand, are literally stuck in the middle. They must listen and care for their employees while living with pressure from the top and filtering messages to both groups accordingly. As such, they are often perceived as the people who resist change, prevent cascading of a strategy and fail to communicate in both directions. When transformations, reorganizations and strategy execution are stuck, middle management is quickly identified as the clay layer making change difficult to achieve.
I invite you to change your perspective. In order to make visions come true and transformations to be successful, we need more realistic leadership to complement visionary leadership. We need to customize the elements of vision and strategy to fit the reality of our people. This reality is where the magic happens, where plans and visions meet the harsh reality of the market place, of customers and competitors alike. These places are real but very different from country to country and from city to city. Successful execution of strategies ultimately depends on the implementation at the market level. And it is achieved by middle managers who, in the best case, role model visionary leadership and translate it into feasible actions for their people.
Let's recognize middle management as the golden nuggets for organizational transformation. Some easy to apply measures help to transform the clay to gold and unearth the full potential of middle management in transformations. We all can role model these behaviors:
• Be present, actively listen and be curious about what is being shared with you. Postpone judgment. We are trained to evaluate information and quickly make decisions. Stay open and curious to explore the perspective offered.
• Be more visible to your people. In office settings, get out and interact with your people during breaks, walks to/from the office or other informal activities. During these informal and sometimes quick dialogue sessions, you can gain a real pulse of the organization, both from verbal and nonverbal cues.
• Be open and embrace the virtual setting. Leverage virtual meetings to reach out to parts of the organization that you could not reach that easily before (e.g., different locations, countries, time zones). Create open invitations to virtual coffee chats that people can join.
• Ensure that employees at all levels can speak up. To do that, they will first need to trust the leaders. In order to gain trust, leaders will need to be open, responsive and humble. This will create the contacts for having actual dialogue. Invite employees to skip-level meetings and reverse mentoring sessions with leaders.
• Spend your time wisely. Revisit your calendar by asking if you spend most of your time activating and motivating your people or combing through spreadsheets. Your people drive results, but only when they feel leaders care about them and not just the bottom line.
Leadership without followers is not leadership. At the same time, a strategy that is not executed at the market level will not be successful. Transformation that is not changing the way people work day to day will be unsuccessful. Therefore, truly reaching all employees quickly and with impact is more important than ever. We need visionary and purpose-driven leadership from the very top. In order to make transformations impactful, we need to shift gears and include the perspective of realistic leadership. Time has come to acknowledge the microcosm of our people, their challenges and what motivates them. Visionary and realistic leadership are the two sides that forge a coin that becomes a true currency in the highly volatile and uncertain environment we all need to operate in.
Therefore, let's give more attention and support to the middle managers and leverage their skills to create more meaningful and successful organizations.
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