Are your middle managers sabotaging organizational success?

We're in a leadership crisis. We see the signs every day; it's harder for us to find great talent, be inspired by incredible leaders, and even just get through our day-to-day lives. Statistic after statistic shows us that the leadership pipeline is abysmal, and unfortunately, without radical change, I don't see this improving. 

• 12% of companies are confident in the strength of their leadership bench, down 30% in five years. (DDI)

• 21% of employees believe their managers effectively lead them. (O.C. Tanner)

• 83% of employees surveyed report a skills gap in their organization. (Talent Development)

• 25% of employees surveyed report that their leaders are passionate and inspire their people to the best possible extent. (McKinsey)

These concerning numbers may prompt a few questions: “Is this why we’ve been feeling the crunch?” “Is my company experiencing a leadership crisis now?” And, of course, the hardest question: “What does it look like to have a leadership crisis?”  

It’s hard to give a definitive answer to what a middle manager leadership crisis will look like for a specific company. Every organization experiences and defines leadership differently. That's why we focus on leadership skills for alignment and clarity. But, even when you work hard to get to the bottom of your team’s challenges, the truth is it's difficult to pinpoint exactly what’s causing these problems: is it leadership or something else? 

Fortunately, we've found several leading indicators that the mid-level leadership skills at your organization may be lacking. After working with over 100 clients, here are our top complaints. 

Your team keeps missing the goal. However you want to define goals and benchmarks, I guarantee that poor leadership is sabotaging their success. I've met developer teams who have never met a deadline. We've also seen organizations that miss revenue, operations, and strategic goals year after year. Ultimately, executives are responsible for these numbers, but their power is limited to the effectiveness of those middle managers getting the work done. Being at the mercy of this group is exhausting. 

Your executive team is getting spread thinner and thinner. When you are dealing with poor mid-manager skill sets, it puts additional pressure on your top team. Executives already have so much on their plates that they cannot keep getting pulled into the weeds and pushed into problems that are not theirs to solve. The level of burnout and stress for the C-suite team has become exponential in the last four years. While we see them acting like superheroes, and shouldering more burden than ever before, a 2024 survey from Deloitte found that 75% of C-suite executives were seriously considering quitting their jobs for better well-being support.

This is a direct response to picking up the slack of abilities for the middle layer of management. Frontline workers have been complaining about burnout, but I see executive blow-ups as a bigger and bigger risk. 

Succession planning is laughable. More often than not, organizations are ill-prepared for when leadership leaves. If you take stock right now and struggle to find anyone that you would trust to step in, even as a temporary solution, you're in trouble. Battlefield promotions are becoming the norm as employees are asked to do more and more in every role and every industry, but it’s not sustainable. And you need succession planning: it is no longer a matter of if something happens, but when something will happen. 

Picture a scenario in which one of your middle managers would have to step up tomorrow to fill an unexpected gap. Do you know who you would call on to act? Can you trust them? If this is all starting to sound like nightmare fuel, you definitely have a problem. 

Team members have a shorter and shorter lifespan. Turnover numbers are a very clear indicator of leadership challenges. First of all, your boss will have a disproportionate impact on your happiness and success. People don't leave companies; they leave bad bosses. Second of all, your managers and leaders are responsible for developing their team. If they are unable to give effective feedback to the coach and coach for performance, you will see more turnover as you burn through employees trying to find ones that are perfect from the start. -

It's easy to brush all these indicators off as problems with your processes, or even an issue of culture. But, at the end of the day, I challenge you to look at how better leadership would improve any of these situations. 

Unfortunately, the organizational impacts of bad (or good!) leadership are a spider web of dotted lines. That's why it's so difficult to measure the ROI of great leadership development initiatives. If you are struggling to make the business case for such a program or personally experiencing these challenges and setbacks within your organization, contact us. We can discuss how your middle managers can show up with more leadership, solve these common problems, and drive success for your organization.