Business growth: The middle manager in transition
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Managing others used to be more autocratic than it was democratic. It was more “command and control” versus “achieving a consensus” of opinions. The role of a middle manager in a growing business has evolved in many ways, according to recent research.
In other words, the middle manager of the future should behave “less as Army commanders and more as basketball coaches,” according to Professor Letian Zhang of Harvard. He has performed an analysis of over 35 million job postings relating to midlevel management managers and what is expected of them. His position is that, “Middle managers aren’t going extinct. They’re evolving.” Zhang suggests that these new types of managers are not devolving. Their new approach to management can give them an innovative and creative edge in the workplace.
In a recent article for the Harvard Business School, Zhang goes on to say that, “Organizations are adopting a more bottom up approach, so they’re trying to unleash the potential, the creativity, and the motivation of frontline employees. The manager’s job is less to tell them what to do, but more to inspire them. I think it’s just a smaller piece of a larger, grander transformation in organizations.” His point is that the “management” of today involves collaboration and coordination with all of the manager’s subordinates. As an added affirmation, his recent study was also published in the American Journal of Sociology.
Zhang feels this new role for managers is going to be helpful, especially in software development companies. He points out that these new types of managers will be key in bringing together normally disconnected departments like sales, engineering, and marketing; encouraging and coaching them to work together toward a mutually established goal.
His conclusions were reached after an exhaustive “linguistic analysis of more than 34 million online job postings for managerial openings in the United States between 2007 and 2021.” According to another article written by Ben Rand “He (Zhang) also gathered and analyzed 1 million newspaper job postings, 6 million manager resumes and job reviews, and 430,000 indeed.com job reviews.”
According to Rand, here are some key takeaways from Zhang’s research:
- “Managerial job postings that required collaborative skills and experience increased by three times between 2007 and 2021. By contrast, job postings that included supervisory capabilities decreased by 23%.
- The use of collaborative phrases in newspaper job postings grew 15% between 1980 and 2000. Prior to 1980, references to collaboration were scarce.”
- The number of managerial resume’s listing supervisory experience decreased by 8% between 1985 and 2015, while those highlighting collaboration increased by 37%.
- References to supervisory duties in indeed.com reviews decreased by 22%, while mentions of collaborative/teamwork skills grew by 28%.”
In the latter years of the 20th Century, many middle managers were identified as being more expendable than useful. But, according to Zhang’s research, manager ranks grew 23% from 2005 to 2020 versus 9.2% in 1983. His observations indicate the greater growth of managers in the early years of the 21st Century were due to economic growth rather than being expendable.
Notwithstanding the above research, some managers are not interested in continuing as managers or they are unwilling to be considered for advancement in the future. According to the global human resource consultants Randstad, 42% of their respondents in a recent poll did not want to be considered for promotion because they are comfortable where they are in the organization.
There is a well known story on the internet about computer maker Dell and their unique way of getting employees back to the office after having worked at home during the COVID pandemic. As the story goes, staff members were told that if they did not come back into the office for at least three days a week, they would not be considered for any future promotion. The overall employee response was underwhelming. Several months after the edict, almost half of the employees were still working remotely from home and could care less about potential future promotions.
Is there a transition taking place in the style your company is looking for in a manager? Maybe so, maybe not. Is your company looking to promote some staff members into a managerial position, but the person(s) are not interested? Maybe so, maybe not. Whatever situation your company finds itself, you need to be able to assess the needs and wants of the company and your employees and adapt or adjust to hiring market situations and conditions in order to take your company to the next level of growth.