Three Strategies to Develop Middle Management

The First Strategy

Hire people in the middle who have aspirations, who want to grow and develop, and who are mobile. Thus, you have leaders who are eager for opportunity. They are attracted to moving, working in a new location is attractive for them, and they are excited about establishing a new beachhead for the company.

Create a process in which, as one of its yearly goals and objectives, top leadership has to develop and take courses. In one company I worked with, if you could not demonstrate to the CEO that you had improved your skill set and thinking abilities in the last year, you were not eligible for a raise no matter how well you had performed. In another company, if you aspired to be a director, you had to get an MBA. These policies can support a company in dramatically growing both revenue and profits.

The Second Strategy

Another way to support the growth and development of the middle is to form a group of middle managers from various companies. Participants are leaders from different departments: Sales executives give input to Production and Human Resource department heads, and so on. There is learning and sharing of different views that goes on during the group sessions, which I also recommend being led by an outside facilitator.

I have led such a middle manager key employee group. We met for each session at different companies, which allowed participants to see the different facets of participating organizations. This key middle management group also gained perspective by reading a different book for each session. Members coached one another on issues and concerns brought to the meetings. The coaching model we followed goes like this:

1. A participant presents a problem with which he or she wants coaching and counseling. This is something challenging they want their peers’ perspectives on.


2. In “round robin” style, everyone asks questions about the issue. You are only allowed to ask one question at a time. Once the question is asked, the person presenting the issue responds with an answer. Then the next person asks a question. Once all questions are asked and responded to, it is assumed everyone understands the issue.


3. Participants then give coaching and feedback to the person presenting the issue. The participants, in effect, become one another’s board of advisors.

The Third Strategy

Still another way of developing the middle is through the establishment of a middle management development and training program. What this does is either bring in talented new hires or promote key employees into a rotation of positions throughout the company. Rotations can last from six months to a year, and the entire program can last up to two years.

At one company I worked with, the underwriting manager became the claims manager, and the claims manager became the underwriting manager. What was great was that the employees of each department stepped up to support and train their new managers. This had some positive results. By teaching their new bosses, the employees better learned their own disciplines and roles. They also gained experience in managing up and supporting a manager to win. Meanwhile, the new managers got trained in an aspect of the business with which they were unfamiliar. They became better-rounded executives.