Middle managers – Vital for maintaining the human connection!
This year’s Future Work Forum research into middle management reminded us that middle managers play a vital role in maintaining meaningful human connection, and that this role is more important than ever in today’s complex, psychologically demanding, and digitally mediated workplaces.
What did the research highlight?
We found that when middle managers facilitate knowledge exchange, communicate clearly and openly, and provide timely effective feedback, then employee engagement typically increases, performance tends to improve, and the likelihood of discretionary effort increases. Middle managers who embrace a coaching style of management also tend to see their team members flourish and embrace new opportunities for learning and growth.
We also found that these management behaviours are too important to leave to chance – they require a conducive, enabling environment and a deliberate, conscious commitment (on the part of the middle managers themselves) to building trust. Middle management requires a high level of professional skill and competence to span boundaries and connect people, and a level of digital literacy commensurate with the needs and demands of the technological platforms, tools and software that underpin high performing hybrid and remote teams.
Middle managers play an important role as the eyes and ears of an organisation but many face uncertainty and job insecurity. Often residing in the layers that are contracted – or even removed – during periods of organisational re-structuring, middle managers can find themselves under pressure from all directions. Their skill and ability to handle precarity and buffer this pressure, whether vertically or horizontally, must be strengthened. Perhaps one of the most under-valued assets in organisations today, middle managers that have understood their role in maintaining human connection, and that have mastered the challenge of being both accessible and available to their colleagues, are vital.
