Between the state of the economy, recent layoffs, and contraction across most industries, employee confidence has fallen to its lowest level since 2016. Many are wondering, “Could I be next on the chopping block?”
But no one is feeling the squeeze quite like mid-level managers, whose confidence has dropped over 6 percent since last year. It’s no wonder: with the excess proliferation of management roles during the pandemic, we’re now seeing the snapback of that growth in the form of organizational flattening that’s left middle managers vulnerable.
Not to mention, many are feeling overworked and burned out and have felt a precipitous decline in their organization’s concern for their well-being. As a result, over half of mid-level managers say they’re watching for or actively seeking a new job.
That’s a huge problem for organizations because middle managers are extremely valuable. Considering their primary role is to connect business strategy with execution, middle managers are where the proverbial rubber meets the road. They’re essential in achieving business objectives and cultivating team engagement, motivation, and performance. They set the tone for the organization: if middle managers are engaged and enthusiastic, their teams will be, too.
Despite these critical responsibilities, middle managers sorely lack organizational support. Only 48 percent strongly agree they have the skills needed to be exceptional in their work, and nearly 2/3 of HR professionals admit the quality of their mid-level management development programs is lacking.
However, one-size-fits-all leadership training won’t cut it. Because each manager brings unique personality traits to the role, leadership development teams must work with those natural tendencies to develop effective leadership skills. Just as some people are fine to work remotely in solitude but others need the energy and camaraderie of an in-office environment, some managers naturally excel at coaching, for example, while others need to cultivate their approach.
Instead of cookie-cutter training, deploying a personalized development program can help middle managers become more self-aware to maximize their impact and performance. Here are five steps for developing customized training programs for middle managers that bolster their effectiveness, engagement, and loyalty.
- Implement personality assessments. Self-awareness is critical for leaders, especially as they rise to higher levels. At this level, managers are rarely fired for lack of technical knowledge but rather for how they show up under times of pressure. It’s important they get personality insights to understand their natural motivations and inclinations, and the impact it has on how they lead – especially under stress.
But there’s a caveat. Companies need to be careful to use a test validated in the science of personality. It should also be a tool that’s focused on how personality traits may affect leadership, not just personality in general. Lastly, it’s important that the goal of the personality insights isn’t to put leaders in a box. It should help them understand themselves and how they can lean on their strengths and control the natural impulses that can derail them. Such insights are for awareness and development – not for any bigger decision-making by HR.
This is crucial for middle managers, who are often surprised by their personal impact as they lead larger groups of people.
2. Help managers adapt their own behaviors. Because they are at the juncture between executives and the front line, middle managers often confront organizational complexities, misalignment, and change management challenges. This friction can uncover personality triggers that can be hard to manage if they’re not taught how to modulate and cope.
Developing self-awareness is essential, and personalized training provides objective data that helps current or aspiring managers uncover blind spots that could derail their success. By understanding any hidden triggers, middle managers can learn “circuit breakers” to adapt their behaviors for a more effective approach to challenging situations.
3. Integrate personal insights into live learning sessions. One of the big mistakes companies make in developing middle managers is divorcing personality or other assessment insights from their development. As a result, middle managers often feel their development — particularly live group development — is too generic and doesn’t apply directly to them.
When personal insights are included in live learning experiences, leaders understand the relevance of what they’re learning and can build trust with their peers by sharing their style.
4. Tailor training sessions to be more efficient. Once mid-level managers understand their personality traits, they can cultivate the skills to help them develop specific areas rather than wasting time and energy on training they don’t need. For example, some might need to enhance their resilience or build confidence, while others need help navigating difficult interpersonal situations without getting rattled. Using ultra-relevant case studies during development is a great way to simulate scenarios and help leaders see how they might respond, but also be exposed to how their peers respond differently to the shared situations.
Focused training with business-relevant examples can help prevent positive traits from turning into dysfunctional ones. For example, helping a leader see how their confidence can show up as arrogance, caution becoming risk aversion, or attention to detail becoming perfectionism.
5. Establish a feedback-friendly environment. Especially as they’re settling into their new role, middle managers may be afraid to admit they’re struggling or to ask for help because they worry it will appear they’re unfit for the position. The truth is that everyone needs feedback and help, even at the highest levels of leadership, but it has to be specific and actionable — not just abstract guidance.
A personalized development program should include creating a psychologically safe space for constructive, focused feedback and enabling conversations where middle managers feel comfortable discussing their tendencies and their implications. This approach provides clear insight into how their personality impacts them as leaders and ties it to specific behaviors and tactics for improvement. Some of the most impactful development breakthrough moments have been when these rising senior leaders bond over shared challenges and are vulnerable to the limitations they sometimes feel.
Offering middle managers personalized development rather than one-size-fits-all training helps them capitalize on their inherent skills and target specific areas for improvement to maximize their success. Because of their pivotal role between strategy and execution, the investment you make in cultivating their individual performance will pay dividends across the organization as their influence sets the tone and builds employee confidence companywide. As the cherry-on-top, focusing development at this level helps build a stronger executive bench for your future succession needs.
