Regardless of if you work or volunteer on a campus, for an inter/ national organization, or a company, you’ve likely found yourself managing the middle. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article titled “Why Being a Middle Manager Is So Exhausting” states: “Middle managers, however, are expected to play very different roles when moving from one interaction to the next, alternating between relatively high and relatively low power interaction styles. By virtue of their structural positions, they are simultaneously the “victims and the carriers of change” within an organization, receiving strategy prescriptions from their bosses above and having to implement those strategies with the people who work beneath them. As a result, middle managers often find themselves stuck in between various stakeholder groups, which can produce “relentless and conflicting demands.” We also know power dynamics — based on employment structure, identities held, workplace culture, or length of time in a role — can make it more difficult to manage the middle. Tell us about a time you had to navigate the description of “middle manager” described above. Were you successful or unsuccessful? What skills or strategies did you employ to support stakeholders in all directions, with varying needs? How did you maintain balance for yourself? What did you learn?
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