SHRM26 Debrief · Leadership & Development · #1683

The Missing Middle of Leadership

with Julie Armstrong

▶ Watch on the SHRM portal ~45 min, distilled

middle managementleadership developmentleadership competencies

"Middle leaders are the middle managers who exercise the leadership competencies necessary to influence their employees' thinking, behaviors, and performance."

What it was about

Middle leaders make up 50-60% of an organization's leadership hierarchy and sit at the hinge between strategy and operations, yet they receive almost no tailored leadership development compared to executives and senior leaders, which drives communication breakdown, stalled change, and inconsistent culture.

By the numbers

50% (one in two)

Referenced Gallup data on people who have left a company because of a toxic manager

78%

Middle leaders in the study who said feeling constrained by systemic limits outside their control (time, calendars, access to their manager) inhibited their effectiveness

50% to 60%

Share of the leadership hierarchy made up of middle leaders

Key notes

Define middle leadership explicitly for your organization: middle managers who exercise the leadership competencies necessary to influence their employees' thinking, behaviors, and performance.
Choose 5-8 leadership competencies (from the people, management, strategy, character, and followership categories) that would create the greatest positive impact if developed consistently in your organization.
Identify and address the top barriers to middle leader effectiveness: lack of access/time with senior leaders, role confusion, feeling stretched between competing priorities, and lack of leadership support.

The contrarian takeThe speaker argues 'communication' shouldn't be taught as a leadership competency on its own; it's too broad an umbrella term to be actionable. Instead she deliberately excludes it and teaches its constituent skills separately: listening, coaching, asking questions, collaborative problem-solving, psychological safety, and emotional intelligence.

Take this back Monday

Do this for your team

List the 5-8 leadership competencies you actually want from your middle managers, so they stop guessing what's expected.

Say this in your next leadership meeting

Half our leadership hierarchy is middle managers, and they get almost no tailored development while executives get most of the investment.

Watch out for

Promoting people into their first management role because they were excellent individual contributors, not because they were identified and developed as leaders.
Pouring leadership development investment into executives and senior leaders and hoping it trickles down to middle managers.
Treating 'communication' as a single competency to teach, when it's too broad to be useful — it should be broken into listening, coaching, asking questions, collaborative problem-solving, psychological safety, and emotional intelligence.

Fun fact · Julie Armstrong

She invented her own trademarked leadership model, the 3H Leadership™ framework (Head, Heart, Hands).

If this landed, see these

↳ Go deeperThe Secret Superpower of High Functioning Leaders: How Process Intelligence Creates Aligned, Accountable TeamsAdds a third leadership dimension, process intelligence, to the exact gap middle leaders fall into.⇄ The counterpointChange-Ready or Change-Resistant? How to Assess and Elevate the Mindsets That Drive AgilityComplicates the competency checklist: middle leaders may need mindset shifts, not more skills.✦ The unexpected oneCulture as the Engine of Change: Leveraging the CARDS Model for Measurable TransformationMiddle leaders are the hinge this culture-change model depends on to succeed.