The Importance of Middle Management

In the old-school business pyramid of ‘big boss at the top’ and ‘worker bees’ at the bottom, the half-way point of the diagram was always labelled as ‘middle management’. A fairly innocuous title, it also lends itself to not giving middle management the credit it deserves.

To use a simple analogy, middle management is the cohesive glue that sticks all segments of a business together and provides the medium through which accurate messages are relayed to correct parties. Over time the role of middle management has changed due to the advent of affordable desk top computers, as originally a large part of their jobs involved the literal moving of paper documents from one person to the next.

The evolution of the position has resulted in middle managers taking on a very important and delicate role in dealing with all staff members. A business, no matter what type of business, can only grow and progress with new ideas. As such, one finds that there are creative innovators who come up with great ideas, but who are not capable of pushing the idea from the ‘Ah! Light bulb!’ phase into a workable project with tangible results. It is middle management that facilitates this development, and syncs creative energy with practical forces to meet the aims and objectives of the business.

Aside from helping actualise ideas into real projects, middle managers are also integral in coordinating the work of others. A creative person may have an excellent idea one day, and then feel taken by another a day later and lose focus, so it is the middle managers job to steer the work force back to the projects that will most benefit the business financially. Middle managers straddle the fine line between being business minded and open minded, and make smart choices that will keep everyone happy.

It is this last point that holds the most water and it should be reiterated that middle managers are responsible for setting the tone of the work environment. They have a large amount of power in their hands, and people that know how to create a productive workspace make for excellent middle managers. A company’s success relies on middle management taking care of the core business elements of a company; so that the ideas people are free to focus on being creative.

At Servest we understand the important role that middle management employees play in the functioning of a company. A beautiful lawn only thrives when supported by the best foundations – and superior middle management is akin to the clay layer holding the base, turf and grass all together; keeping staff happy, ideas flowing and business thriving.