PAPER making! FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF PAPER TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL FROM TH PUB SH RS OF PAP R T Volume 7, Number 3, 2021
The Leadership Skills That Managers in the Middle Need to Advance Overcoming the Challenges of Leading from the Middle Working and leading from the middle is tough. Your boss has priorities. Your direct reports have questions. Peers and colleagues ask you for help and toss extra projects your way. The result: You regularly get pulled in different directions. Working hard and helping others has gotten you this far in your career, but now, new skills are required in order to keep advancing. “Often, people who are leading in the middle find themselves taking on more work and stuck between the competing priorities that exist within the organizational structure,” says Lisa Sinclair, on e of our senior faculty who leads several of our middle manager training programs. According to Sinclair, middle managers often take these competing demands personally. But they shouldn’t. “The truth is, that’s often the system — you just happen to be in the middle of it,” she says. Those leading in the middle may include general managers, plant managers, regional managers, divisional managers, directors, and sometimes even vice presidents. But leading from the middle isn’t about a position; it’s about meeting the demands from above while providing resources to and meeting the needs of those below. Below you’ll learn what our research has found that middle managers need to succeed. The 6 Leadership Skills Middle Managers Need Based on decades of our research and work with over 100,000 middle managers around the world — we know that the 6 leadership skills middle managers most need are:
Thinking and acting systemically
x x x x x x
Resiliency
Communication
Influence
Learning agility
Self-awareness 1. Thinking and Acting Systemically
This requires seeing the big picture, broadening your perspective, seeing patterns in relationships and processes, and dealing with the uncertainties and trade-offs that are part of the complexities of organizations. Give up the need to constantly please. While trying to please everyone, you may find that you’re doing a lot each day, but doubting your ability, impact, and success. This requires self-control and clarity. You need to have understanding and empathy for others — but you ca n’t let everybody’s “stuff” allow you to lose focus. 2. Resiliency Leadership resiliency is about handling stress, uncertainty, and setbacks well — learning to maintain equilibrium under pressure. In our leadership programs, we spend a lot of time helping participants find tools for building resiliency for themselves and for others in their organization.
Article 10 – Management
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