Management is not poor leadership. Language matters.

This week, a giant of the organisational improvement world released an article, “5 things managers do that leaders never would, according to [name].” I’ve not put his name in there for fear of giving the ideas in the article any kind of credibility. The article starts like this:

“Picture this: Two people walk into the same crisis. The project is behind schedule, the client is furious, and the team is falling apart. The first person immediately starts assigning blame, calls an emergency meeting to ‘get to the bottom of this,’ and sends a tersely worded email about ‘accountability and expectations.’ The second person takes a breath, gathers the team, and says, ‘This is tough, but we’re in it together. Let’s figure out how to make this right.’

Same crisis. Same pressure. Completely different responses. It’s a pattern at so many organisations: when the heat is on, people either retreat into management mode or step up into leadership.”

Is that management mode? Really? Is that how management is perceived in the world? By an expert??? Because if so, we have a problem. It gets worse.

According to the author:
Managers hoard information. Leaders overshare.
Managers weaponise policy. Leaders bend rules for people.
Managers “fire fast.” Leaders coach, then help people land softly.
Managers avoid hard conversations. Leaders run towards them.
Managers reward compliance. Leaders reward dissent.

The title manager has been co-opted to mean a substandard leader. Apparently.

We’ve gotten to a place where reductionism has been rewarded so much - that it now misses the mark completely. It’s psychology 101 and actually how fascism starts: by othering, even demonising, another group. By seeing them as less than. By saying, “You’re not a leader like us, if you’re not leading like we do.” I call BS.

So far, we’ve learned that managers hoard information, weaponise policy, discard talent like trash, avoid hard conversations, and reward compliance. What we haven’t learned is that managers lead too, just in different ways. They focus on different things. The purpose of their role is different.

“We’ve talked so much about the aspirational state of leadership we’ve forgotten what it is that managers actually do.”

So let’s break it down.

The function of middle management

Managers are where strategy becomes on-ground action. They bridge the gap between the bright vision of the leadership team and the execution. They translate strategy into tangible action, and without them, your strategy will never be understood by workers, nor realised.

They establish, maintain, and improve systems of work and their processes. Project planning? Workforce planning? Risk planning? Communication? Collaboration with stakeholders? Milestone setting and resource allocation, budgets, and reporting—not to mention…

People management. People are an organisation’s most unpredictable risk, and the management of that cohort sits squarely with their manager. They are navigating personal dynamics, capability gaps, mindset shifts, and personal preferences in a VUCA world, all while also having to meet critical deadlines that are often set without their input with people they likely didn’t hire.

People recruitment and development of talent. The succession pipeline you need? Guess who identifies the skills gaps, hires the workers and makes sure they have the right thinking and skills?

They are the canary on the shoulder of your coal miner. They see the risk before you do. They are dealing with the decisions from yesterday in real time and are best placed to tell you if your operations are capable (for whatever reason) of delivering on your strategy. They are the eyes and ears on the ground and hear things that leaders never would.

They’re doing it without great support, nor respect

To quote the McKinsey Global Survey: “Companies… may be unintentionally thwarting middle managers’ ability to perform in their roles. Companies treat middle management as a catchall, requiring managers to spend much of their time handling non-managerial work and navigating organisational bureaucracy rather than allowing them to focus on the most important role at an organisation: fostering talent.”

The decision to thin out administrative support and other entry-level roles means they’re managing extra paperwork and typing up minutes instead of managing people. It also means the development pipeline has been cut off at its very beginning—so we’re seeing a performance gap develop, with graduates being put directly into senior roles. The reduction in FTE or decisions not to fill a position as a budget-saving measure means that they step in to perform work at an individual contributor level, and as a result are unable to coach their people.

We ask them to deliver more, without giving them more authority or empowerment.

No wonder 1 in 3 Australian middle managers are burning out.

Managers are literally the glue, the engine room of your organisation. They are your link to your people and to achieving your strategy. They keep your people onside and your customers happy. To ignore the importance of this role is navel-gazing at its finest. Leadership should not be celebrated over management. The roles work together to drive organisational performance.

If you want to make real progress in terms of organisational performance—strengthen the middle. It starts with some respect.

Give me a call if you’re serious about improving the middle of your organisation.

Davina Jones is the Director and Organisational Development Specialist at Life and Career Coaching. Her mission is to make management fun.