Sandwiched: Exploring role and identity of middle managers in the genuine middle

Abstract

This paper explores middle managers in the professions from their position in the sandwiched middle. Based upon interviews with senior academics in management roles and their subordinates in UK Business Schools, we investigate this experienced middle through a metaphor that informs one particular subject position: to be an umbrella carrier. This position entails protecting subordinates from what is seen as unnecessary and/or damaging initiatives and information from top management above, in order to allow for good professional work to take place below. This form of counter-management which aims to weaken hierarchical pressure rather than enforce or uphold it, is informed by a stronger identification with the profession and subordinates below than with the leader role or the superiors above and aids the middle managers in their identity work.

Developing Leaders to Serve and Servants to Lead

“…Finally, SL may find that to best fulfill followers’ needs, SL must interact regularly with those above them, as well as their peers in the organization. Learning to lead in a matrix requires that servant leaders understand multi-directional needs and build relationships to obtain the resources required to enable followers to meet their goals (Gjerde & Alvesson, 2020).…”

“…This orientation toward others reflects the leader’s resolve, conviction, or belief that leading others means a movement away from self-orientation” (Eva et al, 2019, p. 114). Truly shifting attention to followers may be a challenge for some leaders since many of them often rise in the organization through their task-oriented style of driving organizational profitability and goals (Gjerde & Alvesson, 2020). However, through a more focused consideration of follower needs and regular one-on-one sessions with those followers, non-servant leaders can better understand how others think (cognitive ToM) and what they need; resulting in stronger development of these followers to more efficiently reach organizational goals.…”

The Role of Middle Management in Continuous Improvement: The Bermuda Triangle of Leadership, Implementation and Behavioral Change

“…Constant reengineering of organizations, increasing automation of work and the impact of IT have diminished the number of middle managers in many organizations dramatically (Birkenshaw 2018a; Clarke 1998; Dopson and Stewart 1993;Hayes 2008;Herzing and Jimmieson 2006;North and Kumta 2018;Stoker 2006). Middle managers thus find themselves in a struggle to survive (Gjerde and Alvesson 2020;Spreitzer and Quinn 1996;Townsend and Dundon 2015), particularly when they perceive the empowering of their subordinates as beneficial to the organization, but not beneficial to themselves (Denham et al 1997). Middle managers have been observed to actively block empowerment in order to preserve the power and status they felt was being reduced or lost (e.g.…”

“…This may also seem paradoxical, as many changes also concern middle managers themselves: managing change thus often requires that middle managers change their own behavior (Eddy and Amey 2018;Heyden et al 2018;Stoker 2005). As a result, they are facing a constant struggle (Gjerde and Alvesson 2020;Uyterhoeven 1989).…”

“…The debate about the middle manager is far from over and will very likely be continued in the coming years (e.g. Gjerde and Alvesson 2020;Heyden et al 2017;Jacobs 2015;Nicula and Ghimiși 2019). One current discussion involves the impact of new forms of organizing like organizational agility, self-management and holacracy on the role of middle management (De Man et al 2019;Lee and Edmondson 2017;Rigby et al 2016;Romme 2015Romme , 2017Velinov et al 2018).…”