As the connection between senior leadership and frontline staff, mid-level managers are a critical resource for change management. However, if you don’t engage them effectively, these team leads can become a sticking point instead, leading to inefficient roll-out and disinterested staff.
The 'Sandwich' Leader
Mid-level managers are in a tough place because they are trying to balance the day-to-day team tasks with the company vision that they often didn’t help shape, but now need to promote to their teams. Many managers have their own tasks they are responsible for as well, so they are balancing doing with managing, which means leading can get left behind.
How can employers engage this group to improve results throughout the organization? Start here:
1. Give them space.
It’s easy for managers to get focused on the specific tasks of the day. A sense of urgency is great for productivity, but if your mid-level managers are constantly putting out fires as they arise, they don’t have the mental space to embrace long-term change.
Give your managers some of their time back by reducing their workload where possible, booking regular time to discuss strategy and company priorities and giving long-term planning the same urgency as short-term goals.
2. Bring them on board earlier and keep them on the journey.
The best way to get people to engage in a change process is to help them feel a sense of ownership for its success. Give your managers a voice in the process and ongoing input so they feel invested in the outcome. Including these managers has other advantages as well: If you’re relying on the same people every time to come up with new ideas, you're missing out on the input of a large segment of your workplace population — whose ideas may be more valuable than upper management tends to think.
Mid-level managers are well-positioned to help contribute because of their unique place bridging the gap between frontline and senior leadership.
3. Provide the right tools and support.
Empower your managers so they understand the process and don’t feel overwhelmed. Adequate training can make all the difference in a new manager's performance.
4. Provide clear and realistic understandings.
Uncertainty is often one of the biggest challenges to effective change management, so setting clear expectations is crucial. Communication is key.
Create a checklist of steps and responsibilities so your managers are very clear on what they need to do and when. It’s important to have clear timeframes and accountability, regular check-ins or updates and lots of support. Make sure you have a designated person for questions, and create accessible FAQs and factsheets so managers can check any detail they might not be sure of.
This will help reduce uncertainty throughout the organization as frontline workers know they can talk to their team leads and managers about the expected change.
5. Create a learning culture.
This last point is a big one, even deserving of its own article. If you asked someone on your team to learn a new program or skill, are they excited to change and grow, or do they treat it like a chore?
Cultivating a learning culture means that your teams are open to change and embrace new processes, instead of feeling put out or overwhelmed by a call to action. The key here is to make continual learning feel like a team experience: everyone is working together to constantly improve results, processes and knowledge.
An important aspect of building this type of culture is giving everyone space to fail. If failure is punished, then there is a risk to trying something new. However, if the reaction to failure is, “Why didn’t that work and what can we try instead?” then you’re encouraging people to be more agile, creative and adventurous, which are all good things for your company.
When you get this aspect of change management right, you’ll have easier transitions as well as happier, more engaged, more productive people at every level.
