In Defense of Middle Management

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Middle managers are meant to serve as a go-between for leadership teams and individual contributors. But in large organizations, with many layers of hierarchy, some of these roles feel like bureaucratic bloat, which, in tighter economic times, makes them a target for elimination. Emily Field, a partner at McKinsey & Company, thinks in many cases that's a mistake. She argues that most middle managers are critical to corporate performance and productivity, executive team insight, and employee well-being. The key is making sure their roles adapt to the times. Field is the coauthor, along with Bryan Hancock and Bill Schaninger, of the HBR article "Don’t Eliminate Your Middle Managers," as well as the book Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work.

Transcript

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0:30.0	Welcome to the HBR Idea Cast from Harvard Business Review, I'm Allison Beard.
0:49.5	When you hear the phrase middle management, what comes to mind?
0:53.0	For many, it might be parodies of corporate life, like Dilbert or the office, where layers
0:58.1	are bureaucratic hierarchy or full of ineffectual leaders who stand between the top executives
1:03.5	and the real workers and tend to create more problems than they solve.
1:08.2	Middle managers are people who are paid well, but don't produce much extra value.
1:12.6	Those are the negative stereotypes.
1:14.7	But in most organizations, with scale, middle managers play a really important and necessary
1:19.6	role.
1:20.6	They can be recruiters and developers of talent, project guides, team builders, information
1:25.4	gatherers, problem solvers, so why does middle management have such a bad rap?
1:30.6	Is it that most people aren't good at it or that outsiders don't understand the job?
1:35.3	Why are so many middle managers burnt out?
1:37.6	How can we help them be more effective?
1:39.9	And when budgets are tight, should they really be some of the first people to go?
1:44.0	Today's guest is here to help us answer those questions.
1:47.1	She thinks we need to defend and protect middle management, but argues that the role should
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