11. Bridge Builder
Everything meets in the middle, by definition. And the middle manager builds the bridges to connect all sorts of groups, up, down, and across the organization to make things happen. Bridges are built and maintained on trust, the subject of many books, so I'll simply laser in on one aspect of this here.
The Role Play: Remember that every action you take will be put by observers (even if subconsciously) into one of two classifications: something that builds trust or erodes it. Research shows the three best ways to visibly reinforce trust are revealing your thoughts about important issues and encouraging others to raise issues, admitting mistakes, and acting consistently with company values.14 The opposite of any of these things can destroy the trust you've built up in the blink of an eye. In the middle especially, every action produces a rippling reaction of trust built or broken.
12. Framer
Getting things done from the middle happens by constantly providing context up, down, and across, and by shaping decisions.
The Role Play: Key here is to remember that without proper framing, the building of a house will never progress. Likewise, without proper framing, building support for ideas and desired decisions will never progress, either. So, invest the time it takes to mold and shape the inputs to get the desired outputs. For example, give well‐prepared recommendations framed with multiple options and pros and cons for each.
13. Sense Maker
We've established that the middle is messy, which means what passes through it doesn't always make sense. Employees can easily lose the bigger picture and the plot, disconnecting from why they're doing what they're doing and wondering if what they do matters. A big role of the middle manager is to connect employees with the meaning in and at their work.
The Role Play: As I explain in detail in Make It Matter, you create meaning for employees by connecting them to the higher‐order purpose behind their work, by feeding their learning and growth, by stoking their sense of competency and self‐esteem, by granting autonomy liberally, and by nurturing a caring, authentic, teamwork‐based environment. When you help make meaning, you help employees make sense of why they're spending so many hours at their job.
14. Champion
The effective leader in the middle champions ideas they believe in up, down, and across the organization, helping them to fruition.
The Role Play: The key here is to act as an active sponsor, not a passive fan of the initiative. True champions of an initiative or idea roll their sleeves up to help. They bring in allies for support, help overcome detractors, and tout the initiative's benefits while helping identify weaknesses to be shored up. Champions are in a unique position to help an initiative team see around corners and anticipate barriers. Use that power to aid progress.
15. Facilitator
This is about constantly controlling flow, keeping things moving to achieve goals. In the end, no one must be more action‐oriented than those who lead from the middle; otherwise you become the bottleneck.
The Role Play: Here's the trick to being a great facilitator, drawn from my experience as a leadership training facilitator. The most important rule of running great training is to design the session with the participants' experience in mind. Think of each opportunity to facilitate in this light. For example, perhaps you're facilitating a meeting between Sales and Product Supply to develop a plan to ship enough product into stores for an upcoming promotion. What does Sales want to experience from the meeting? Put yourself in their shoes. What does Product Supply want to experience? How can you orchestrate the experience of the meeting to produce an outcome that moves things forward?
16. Buffer
Being in the middle means being subject to abruptness and unintended consequences all around. Sometimes you have to scrub and filter messages from others before passing them on, reworking the message to reflect its intent, not its poor execution. Sometimes, a mediator is needed in between parties to keep both sides positive and forward focused. Sometimes a layer is simply needed between the most senior leaders and those below to soften the blow of communications or actions.
The Role Play: Central to being a good buffer is purity of intent. If you have the right intent, you have the right to shape the content. It's not about withholding information or warping truth. It's about carefully molding communications and maintaining a positive culture to help the organization achieve its goals.
17. Straddler
Those in the middle must straddle between long‐term objectives and short‐term goals, balancing the need to attend to both.
The Role Play: Key here is to not think of the long and short‐term as distinct entities. When considering long‐term objectives, evaluate current short‐term actions to ensure they feed the longer‐term objectives. It's easy to lose the plot and chase urgent priorities of the moment that are, in truth, inconsistent with achieving a long‐term objective. And when engaged in short‐term activities, pay attention to what you learn along the way and let it inform and inspire the formulation of long‐term objectives.
18. Accountability Czar
Fostering a sense of accountability isn't just about holding your employees accountable. It starts with you acting like an owner and holding yourself accountable, as well as holding senior managers accountable.
The Role Play: Author Peter Bregman has the essence of driving accountability exactly right—it's about achieving clarity on five things. Be clear on expectations, capability (resources and skills required to complete the work), measurement, feedback, and consequences.15 It's as simple as that, but know that it's an all‐or‐nothing proposition. If you miss on any one of these five points, accountability will crumble.
19. Communicator, 20. Coach, 21. Team Builder
Each of these vital roles will be covered in depth in Chapters 3, 5, and 6, respectively.
Those who lead from the middle experience a breadth and depth of scope and roles like no one else in an organization. Revel in the choreographed dance you excel at. Believe that leading effectively from the middle is a craft and that you're on your way to becoming a craft master, something to take pride in. Know that you don't have to be the leader to be a leader. Realize that you're the center of progress, that you exist to make a profound impact and to infuse your workplace with energy and a winning attitude. Believe that you're a tour de force and attack your scope and roles with passion, fueled now by power plays for each scope and role challenge.
Know that leading successfully from the middle is also a mindset and a skillset. So, set your mind now to Chapter 2, where we open the playbook to learn the mindset required.
Notes:
1 1. P. Evans, “Management 21C,” Chapter 5, Financial Times, Prentice Hall (2000),