In Praise of Middle Managers
Nobody writes poems about middle managers. Nobody gets too romantic about the person who runs a department at a company, supervises a construction crew or serves as principal at a school. But I have come to believe that these folks are the unsung heroes of our age.
Amid an atmosphere of division, distrust, bitterness and exhaustion in America, these managers are the frontline workers who try to resolve tensions and keep communities working, their teams united and relationships afloat. At a time when conflict entrepreneurs and demagogues are trying to rip society apart, I am beginning to think that these managers, spread across the institutions of society, are serving as the invisible glue that gives us a shot at sticking together.
When I hear managers talk about their work and its challenges, I hear, at least among the most inspiring of them, about the ways they put people over process, about the ways they deeply honor those right around them. A phrase pops into my mind: “Ethical leadership.” This is not just management. Something more deeply humanistic is going on. Here are a few features of ethical leadership:
Knowing that moral formation is part of the job. Here we turn to the TV series “Ted Lasso.” When the title character was asked about his goal for his soccer team, he replied: “Success is not about the wins and losses. It’s about helping these young fellas be the best versions of themselves on and off the field.” The lesson is that if you help your people become the best versions of themselves, the results you seek will take care of themselves.
Creating a moral ecology. I love talking about my old boss Jim Lehrer. When I was starting out at “PBS NewsHour” and I said something he thought was smart, his eyes would crinkle with pleasure. When I said something he thought was crass, his mouth would turn down in displeasure.
Jim never had to say anything, but with those kinds of slight gestures he taught us how to do our jobs. Jim is gone, but the standards and moral ecology he helped create live on. Morally healthy communities habituate people to behave in certain ways and make it easier to be good.
Being hyperattentive. The leaders we admire pay close attention to those who work with them. They are not self-centered but cast the beam of their care on others, making them feel seen and lit up. In how you see me, I come to see myself. If you cast a just and loving attention on people, they blossom.
Knowing that people are watching more closely than
you might think. We like to believe that it is our fancy pronouncements that have a big impact on others. But what usually gets communicated most deeply is the leader’s smallest gestures, like the casual gifts of politeness, the little compliment — or, on the other hand, the coldness of thoughtlessness.
Generativity. The economists tell us that people are basically self-interested, but there comes a time in the lives of many managers when the capacity to guide and foster the next generation is more rewarding than just serving themselves. And yet they do this mentoring with respect, not condescension. The most generative leaders do not see themselves as doing things “for” people. They know that “with” is more powerful than “for.”
The absence of a heroic sense. Albert Schweitzer was genuinely heroic. In 1905, he decided to leave his successful careers in music and academia to become a missionary doctor serving the poor in Africa. But he never thought that he was doing anything special, and he never hired people who thought of their work in those terms. If you are going to last in a life of sacrificial service, he concluded, you have to treat it as something as normal as doing the dishes.
The same humility is observed in the best organizations — the willingness to do the uncelebrated work, day after day.
Preserving the moral lens. People in most professions are driven by mixed motives. Doctors, for instance, want to heal the sick but are pressured to speed through enough patients to make the practice profitable. It is easy for the utilitarian lens of metrics to eclipse the moral lens that drew us to our work in the first place. Ethical leaders push against the creeping pressures of utilitarianism, so that the people around them remember the ideals that drove them into their work.
A posture of joy. We assume we are being judged on our competence, but mostly we are judged on our warmth. Ethical leaders communicate a joyfulness in what they do and attract followers in part by showing pleasure. Look at the great Russian martyr Aleksei Navalny. He was funny and teasing, even in the most brutal circumstances.
America’s founding fathers understood that when private virtue fails, relationships fail and the constitutional order crumbles. The crucial struggle of our time is not merely the global struggle between democracy and authoritarianism; it is the day-to-day contest between the forces that honor human dignity and those that spread dehumanization.
The democratic fabric is held together by daily acts of consideration that middle managers are in a position to practice and foster. The best of them do not resolve our disputes but lift us above them so that we can see disagreements from a higher and more generous vantage point. Democracy is a way of living, a way of living generously within disagreements, one that works only with ethical leaders showing the way.