Delegation: Take It Up A Level

By Beth Schaefer

Delegation is tough.  To delegate is to entrust another to represent you by assigning them responsibility and authority.  And, raise your hand if you have ever been taught how to delegate your work. Anyone?

A few reasons that delegation is difficult for me include:

1. Ultimately, I am responsible for what happens in my department/on my team.
2. I know exactly how I want things done and/or how they should be done because I have done almost all the tasks for my department at one time or another for the past 10 years.
3. I am an achiever: one of my strengths identified from the Gallup Assessment (have your managers take our course Leading with your Strengths to learn theirs). I know that all strengths can become a weakness if taken to an extreme, and the weakness of the achiever strength is that you can have perfectionist tendencies (see item #2).

Those 3 characteristics are what earned me my leadership role.  Why would I abandon what has helped me to succeed? Therefore, as a Middle Manager, I struggle with how much to delegate and if/when to pull work back if results become an issue.

Realistically, as a Middle Manager, you cannot do all the work; hence, the reason you have a team.  You need to delegate work and balance letting go with keeping an eye on the situation.  Ultimately, you are responsible for the work that your team produces.  And this is tricky; in fact, entire training courses do exist on delegating: IPD has one for your leaders called Adopt a Coaching Attitude.

Recently, I heard a conversation that provided some insight that is helping me shape my day-to-day view on delegation.  And, the insight comes from the sports world. I know, I seldom use sports analogies but stick with me on this because this example will use minimal sports jargon to transfer my observation from sports to the workplace.

My sporty source is Mike Conely, a Minnesota Wolves Timberwolves point guard.  Mike, at age 37, is considered the wise old sage of the team.  On a recent KFAN interview*, he was discussing younger players who lose their composure on the court and are flagged for penalties that can hurt the team.  He said that those younger players need to learn how to “play up a level.”

Play up a level means to look at the bigger picture, the bigger goal, the long-term or even short-term goal, but not at any one single moment.  In a moment on any given day, your people may not be at their best; they may make a mistake; they may make an inefficient choice; they may forget a detail, but it’s a moment – it’s not the whole game; it’s not the whole series; and it’s not the whole season.

This “Play up a Level” view helps me to suppress my micromanaging tendencies and be better at delegating and using “mistake moments” to coach rather than pull work back onto my own plate.  Because we are at work, and not at play, I will change the phrase to “Take it up a level.”  This lens will remind me to coach through the moment with a view to the bigger picture rather than trying to keep doing everything myself.

Since I have been honest about my struggle with delegating, you have already guessed that I am not a delegation expert.  I offered one observation for managing delegation, but I would love to hear from you.  Please fill out the form and share your best tip for delegating work.  IPD will select some delegation strategies to publish in next month’s newsletter.

Also, fill out our standard customized training form to indicate your interest in bringing any of IPD’s workshops to the leaders in your organization.

Please note: At the time of writing this article, the Wolves are playing the LA Lakers in the 2025 play-offs, and I am staying up late to watch games on West Coast time.  This may not have a positive effect on my writing, but it is making me a lot more willing to delegate work!

*Apologies to Mike Conley from the Wolves and Dan Barreiro from KFAN as I was unable to locate the conversation analysis in the podcast bank for a proper citation.

6 Key Activities That Support Middle Management

By Beth Schaefer

My research from Forbes suggests, “Middle Managers have the potential to drive growth specifically because of their unique position with a company… middle management binds purpose with execution.”

In the second article in the Middle Management Series, I discussed the research supporting the importance of middle managers to an organization. Because of this role’s importance, organizations should intentionally and directly support the people in those roles rather than view them as a “layover” position.

Here are 6 Key Activities organizations can take to build up middle managers and build up their organization’s potential:

1. Listen to them

And, even better, empower them.  Daily, middle managers observe who and what is working… and who and what is not working.  Ask them to weigh in on decisions and listen to what they say.  Provide them with some latitude to make decisions or execute the organizational goals in a manner that makes sense for their team.  Provide them with training beyond the check-off-the-box meant to save the organization insurance and legal costs and instead pay for professional development that helps them lead their team.

2. Give them credit and respect

Recognize that there isn’t anything wrong with someone who loves their job and does not want to move into C-Suite.  The best leaders are sometimes followers; the best followers are sometimes leaders.  This appears to be a relatively easy concept on the surface, but one that is difficult to juggle within the power dynamic or political climate of an organization.  Middle Managers do this every day.  The best middle managers have the confidence to listen to their team members and to challenge their superiors. Knowing how and when to do both is a nuanced skill that should be respected.

3. Quit measuring success by the number of direct reports

In America, we tend to be about big and bigger: “Value price meals” with extra-large servings; Gawdy stats of individual athletic achievements over the team success; giant SUV’s to transport 1 or 2 people.  It is hard to escape that in America, more equals better, and that quality is often an afterthought. The bigger is better concept is often applied to how middle managers are rewarded.  Someone who has 55 direct reports is paid more than someone who has 34 direct reports who is paid more than someone who has 12 direct reports.  Of course, the natural reaction is, but the 55-report person is doing more work.  The question to ask is, what kind of work?  “Paperwork” and reporting could take most of the time for someone who has 55 direct reports with very little time spent on the actual managing – coaching, communicating, and collaborating. And, most would agree, it’s the “people work” that requires the greater skill.  Put in success measurements that are more than the number of boxes on an organizational chart.

4. Pay for expertise and experience – not organizational chart status

In article 1, I talked about how much I enjoy middle management.  With several years left to work, I have reached my financial peak as a middle manager.  So, unless I choose to move up the organizational chart, my salary will stay the same even as my experience and contributions to the organization grows.  The next layer of leadership shifts into strategy.  While I enjoy using value streams, capability mapping, and the SIPOC to solve problems, I do not want to do hypothetical risk cases and projections all the time.  Reward middle managers for the work they love to do and for their experience of doing it well.

5. Find ways to reward outstanding employees instead of promoting them to management

Most organizations provide one path of financial reward, and it goes through official leadership roles.  This causes people who are experts in research, or selling, or creativity, or coordinating, or engineering, or accounting, or (fill-in-the-black) to leave behind the work they love to do and become a middle manager.  Contrary to this career pathway, being an experienced expert in a specific skill does not necessarily make you good at leadership. Being a good leader is about collaboration, coaching, and communication and often has very little to do with the actual skill and expertise that is valued in the current role.   Every day, somewhere in America, an organization is promoting people into leadership roles as a “reward” when, in fact, they are setting up many of those people for failure, and, indirectly, their teams and organizations for failure too.  Do not use Middle Management as a reward for those who do not really want to be leaders.

6. Pay for Professional Development

I know; I work for an organization that sells professional development.  The reason I do this work is because l believe in its value, but you do not need to go by me – plenty of research will tell you the same thing.  Providing professional development for leaders is critical because leadership challenges are not static.   While some challenges, such as team collaboration, remain perennially relevant, new leadership issues do surface.  For instance, most workplaces now have 4 generations of workers.  Or the latest leadership challenge of when and how to incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) and train your team to use it effectively and ethically. Learning about leadership is not just “one and done.”

Ideally, organizations will look at how they structure and support middle management roles so that they can contribute to growing the organization.  However, judging from the number of people I have heard from since starting this series (Middle Managers Part 1), it appears that middle managers find themselves in situations with difficult choices.  The next set of articles will explore common middle managers’ dilemmas and some action suggestions that middle managers can take to navigate them.

Importance of Middle Managers

Middle Managers are the crème in the Oreos® of the workplace.  They are the delightful, yet functional, filling that connects the two cookie wafers: workers and leadership.

Think about that classic cookie without the filling. That is what an organization is without Middle Management –  two cookies that are disconnected.  You can press them together, but… they will not stick, and might even crumble.

Here are the Top 6 benefits your organization receives through middle managers:

1. Middle Managers Drive Growth.

Middle managers provide purpose to their team.  Feeling connected to the purpose of the organization is one of the best ways to engage a productive workforce. Middle Managers pace work for consistent production that builds resiliency against stress and prevents burnout. A respected Middle Manger can request extra from their team when needed and get it. Middle Managers can foster worker relationships and create high-performing teams, or teach employees how to slack off and not get caught, or be a jerk and create a disenfranchised workforce that results in mediocre products and customer service. That is why it is important to support Middle Managers (strategies to do this in the next article).

2. Middle Managers Set the Tone of the Work Environment.

Some organizational culture trickles down from the top, but it can be reinforced or undermined by a savvy Middle Manager. They set the expectations. The best Middle Managers model respect, kindness, and grace.  They coach their teams to do the same. They find the right time and place to address bad behaviors that can infect the team, nipping them in the bud. Ultimately, their treatment of employees makes the organization either a desirable place to work or one that workers want to leave.

3.Middle Managers Provide Reality Checks.

Timelines, projects, and processes often look good on paper, but they do not tell the tale of the unintended consequence: the fallout when someone who makes a decision is unaware of all the stakeholders or processes affected.  An unintended consequence could result in a process hiccup or an epic fail.  An effective Middle Manager can diplomatically push back on the organization when administrative decisions come with unintended consequences, keeping their organizations on track and running smoothly.

4.Middle Managers are the Organization’s Moral Compass.

While organizations often hire consultants to facilitate leadership’s writing of mission, vision, and values statements, it is the Middle Managers who live it and model it for all employees.  The true culture of the organization is not in the written words, but in the everyday living. Employees watch middle management for how closely their behaviors align with the espoused values.  They listen to Middle Managers explain how the administration’s decisions are connected to (or disconnected from) their mission statement.  Middle Manager’s actions can reveal their feelings about the organization.  Are they trusted leaders or a bunch of phonies who say one thing but do another?  Middle Managers guide the moral and ethical decisions of their entire team.

5.Middle Managers Put the Human in Human Resources

Administration writes policies about human resources or human capital.  These policies provide necessary governance of humans in the workplace, but it is the Middle Managers who put the humanity into the workplace.  Effective Middle Managers take time to listen to individual workers and address their challenges. They are the ones aware of workers who are sick or grieving or struggling for any number of reasons. They know which resources to offer and provide assistance at the moment it is needed.

6.Middle Managers Build Succession and Loyalty.

Middle Managers coach, mentor, and nurture the next generation of leaders.  Through the delegation of work, they can provide low-risk opportunities for their workers to practice leadership.  They can model decision-making, using clear communication, and accepting responsibility for their actions. They can give credit to their teams instead of making themselves look good.  They can build trust with the workforce by being authentic with problems and not being trite or flippant when work is challenging.

The daily decisions and interactions of Middle Managers are the brushstrokes and colors that compose an organization’s painting.

Provide Leading Teams Through Change to your organization to support your Middle Managers.