Why the tough job of the middle manager is getting even harder every day
When you ask senior executives about the toughest job in their organization, many will quickly admit, “It’s our middle managers. They are the glue that holds this whole place together.” Executives’ sense of the importance of frontline leaders is backed up by research and explains growing interest in management development training. Gallup studies tell us that 70 percent of the variance in employee engagement is explained by one thing: the manager an employee reports to. No other factor comes close. For today’s frontline leaders, the challenge is not just that their job is hard; it’s that it’s getting even harder every day. This post is the first in our series “Stuck in the Middle.” Over the next several weeks, we’ll explore ways that organizations can