What is The Middle Management Anonymous?
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The creation of The Middle Management Anonymous comes from a reflection over my personal middle management journey.
My vision for The Middle Management Anonymous is to provide a safe structure for fellow leaders from the middle, to get inspired from others’ experiences, and to never fall into corporate survival mode.
If you prefer action over motion, you can join The Middle Management Anonymous community.
The next step is The Middle Management Anonymous Agora, a podcast where we can share first hand middle management experience with the community and beyond.
Now if you are courageous, you can read the long version 😊
Why The Middle Management Anonymous? Where does it stem from?
I started my career in 2003 as a young engineer.
Two years in, I was given my first middle manager role. I was 26. I moved to Finland to work on a nuclear power plant construction site.
In eighteen months, my team grew from two to fifteen.
I have never hired anyone before, never been taught how to lead a team, did not have a clue how to establish roles and responsibilities, communicate with my stakeholders, our customer, plan the work, manage the performance of the team…
An incredibly steep learning curve.
If I managed to pull it off, it is thanks to Mark, a fellow QHSE leader, an amazing mentor, and a role model.
We shared the same bungalow – we were on a construction site – during six months until he was assigned to another project. And then I was on my own.
I learned more during those six months than during my full university curriculum. Without Mark’s time, patience, sparring, feedback, and guidance, I would not have been successful or yet alone survive the four years I spent on that construction site.
As I led alone my team, I missed Mark more than once. I missed the chats at the end the workday, his practical explanations, his wisdom.
And then I moved on to new industry sectors. I worked in different countries across Europe, with very contrasting cultures. I had team members in India, South-East Asia, US…
What strikes me is that despite of our apparent diversity, we all shared common middle management stories, situations, dilemmas, or challenges.
I somehow made it through. But I am sure it could have been easier if I would have had Mark alongside me.
How did I become the leader from the middle I am today?
Three main contributing factors come to mind.
Do – I just cracked on. I have put myself forward on some occasions, grabbing interesting and challenging opportunities. Practice and experience have certainly been the best way I used to support my personal development.
Share – I did meet other influential characters throughout my career. Some were incredibly smart and experienced, and shared their knowledge altruistically. Others took time to listen, and through feedbacks, by offering new perspectives, helped me to grow as a person and as a leader.
Learn – I attended countless leadership and personal development programs curated by my successive employers. I also got back to school for three years to get an MBA. I read a lot…
It seems that I have strike the perfect formula.
Well, I am not so sure about that.
Do – Have I always done the right thing? Have I always chosen to spend my time and energy where I should have? I got busy my whole working life. But was it on the right topic, on the right project, with the right approach? The answer is no. A big, massive, and imposing no. I made some decisions that I regret today. I declined opportunities I thought were too much of a stretch for me. I accepted too easily to stay in my comfort zone, because it was very convenient for my boss or other colleagues. But in hindsight, it was not the best choice for me. How another middle manager would have approached similar situations? What questions should I have asked before taking my decision? What other perspectives should I have considered before committing?
Share – Over the years, I have certainly built very strong relationships with colleagues. Those relationships have withstood the test of time. But as I met them in the same professional ecosystem, I may have limited myself in how much I could grow through others. How a middle manager with a finance or an IT background would have dealt with building their strategy for their department? Probably with a different mindset and different perspective than an engineer who worked their all career in the energy business – as an example. I can’t help myself thinking that I miss inspiration from fellow middle managers operating in totally different industry sectors.
Learn – At each leadership training, I probably came across tens of models, concepts, or tools. Another dozen will show up in just a quick scroll on my LinkedIn feed. The truth is, I can probably count those I regularly use with the fingers of one hand – ok, maybe a little more. It is not that those tools are too complex or useless. But most of the time, the information provided, whether in trainings, books, or social media, is too theoretical or not relatable. This is exactly what I experienced with the Eisenhower Matrix. What if a fellow middle manager could explain how they use those tools in real life and provide examples? What if other tools are better suited for a given problem, situation, or task?
Moreover, leadership development models are considered mostly from an individualistic point of view. Surely leadership development models might help you to become a better leader, a better communicator, a better presenter, a better time manager, more self-aware… But we live and work in a complex world where anything significant is accomplished through human being collaboration – partnership, group, team.
A middle manager is responsible for a group of people, not a collection of individuals. A team needs to grow, develop, communicate efficiently as a whole. The commonly advertised leadership development models are not only individualistic, but there are also simplistic. Because real-life group interactions are too complex and nuanced to be explained in one graphic and ten words, effective learning about leadership development models can only be achieved through stories from fellow middle managers.
I would like to add two other limiting factors to the development of a leader from the middle that I personally experienced.
The first one is the degree of psychological safety a middle manager can find at the workplace.
On one end of the spectrum, some may enjoy an open and caring work culture. It is then quite easy to share issues or challenges, to develop relationship with mentors, and to find sparring partners among colleagues. But even it that case, opening too much or displaying vulnerability can backfire at some point. That leads to the other end of the spectrum. Other middle managers may work in organizations where sharing concerns, problems, challenges or simply asking for help is not possible. This may be due to cultural reason, because of a toxic workplace culture, or because the organisation is agnostic to middle management issues. In those conditions, it is difficult to find development opportunities, yet alone seeking for support or help. Just working in Europe, I have experienced both ends of the psychological safety spectrum.
Second, being a foreigner adds a layer of complexity when it comes to building relationships and establishing a network.
When you move to a new country, you start from scratch. Outside the capital area, it is highly likely that the local people you meet will have a fully established life and network. That means that they will have little incentive to see you as their new “friend”, and even though you can develop good relationships, those will remain superficial. Of course, this is not always the case, and if you live in a capital area, it is likely that other foreigners live there, making networking and relationship building easier. Many variables need to be considered: local language proficiency, local customs, your social skills. The bottom line is, as it is already difficult to establish relationships and network in a new country, it is even more difficult to find likeminded persons with whom you can openly discuss, share, spar on middle management development topics.
What is The Middle Management Anonymous?
The inception of The Middle Management Anonymous stems from all the reflections I summarized above.
Even though I have a reasonably successful career, it could have been easier at time if I would have been able to tap into some wisdom, get support, new perspectives, encouragement, reality-checks, and other feedbacks.
From whom?
I will be honest, I have never met a new “Mark”.
But I would have liked to meet fellow middle managers who understand the complexity and intricacies of middle management roles. Ideally, they would be “disinterested”.
What I mean by “disinterested” is that I would not fear to be vulnerable. We would not be part of the same organization. We would not be competing for the same promotion. We would not need to be on the reserve because of corporate political reasons.
Our relationship would be purely altruistic, dedicated to sharing experience and to helping others understand, reflect, get inspired and grow.
It may sound naïve, but this exactly what I want The Middle Management Anonymous to be.
My vision for The Middle Management Anonymous is to provide a safe structure for fellow leaders from the middle, to get inspired from others’ experiences, and to never fall into corporate survival mode.
Because we should never get to the point where we talk about corporate survival. Thriving as a leader from the middle can be a challenging endeavor. But as I also eluded on, it is not because it is difficult that it cannot be enjoyable or rewarding. Quite the contrary.
I believe in the power of community, where one can rely on the group, and the group can rely on the individual.
This is what I want The Middle Management Anonymous community to be.
Why Middle Management?
Well, I suppose you got it by now. I am a middle manager, and because I believe we have so much to bring to each other, this initiative targets the middle management.
I originally thought to focus on a specific industry (i.e., construction, energy, renewables, nuclear – where I come from) or a special demographic (i.e., expatriates). But I do not want to exclude anyone. That would contradict my belief in what diversity can bring.
Why Anonymous?
This is not because I want to hide myself. If you have visited my website, you can easily see who I am.
So, why Anonymous?
This may sound inappropriate for some. I believe we have all heard about the Alcoholic Anonymous. Encyclopaedia Britannica defines the Alcoholic Anonymous as “a voluntary fellowship of alcoholic persons who seek to get sober and remain sober through self-help and the help of other recovered alcoholics”. Further, “to counteract self-indulgence and promote the group’s welfare, members identify themselves only by first name and surname initial”.
I am not making a comparison between middle management and alcoholism. But the way the AA operates resonates with me.
I want The Middle Management Anonymous to be voluntary, to be a place where fellow leaders from the middle can thrive through self-help and help of others, and where members could identify themselves in an anonymous way, to avoid corporate political peer pressure.
Maybe this was a bad idea because indelicate and carrying a negative connotation.
Time will tell.
The Middle Management Anonymous is a positively charged initiative, from which leaders from the middle will get energy and inspiration to transform their doubts and questions into actions.
The Middle Management Anonymous, and so what?
I have played with and ruminated those ideas for months, without knowing where to start, always finding good excuses and plausible reasons why this would not work – and maybe it will not.
I read a dozen of books related to the middle management topic.
I was in motion, not in action, which is a very different thing as very well explained in James Clear book, Atomic Ideas.
And then I did three things – yes, I finally acted.
I reached out to one of my impromptu connections – a fellow dad and middle manager I met at the playground one day, as our kids were sharing the same swing. We had lunch and I told him about my idea. He asked me what I was waiting for to open a LinkedIn group. I opened one the same evening.
I also opened my website where I could share my ideas.
I started to write a blog and post weekly. I did so consistently for the past three months and intent to continue so. It might not be the most effective way to proceed, but this fits me well. I love writing. I absolutely enjoy long readings. I feel it is the adequate way to share ideas.
I made a few mistakes along the way.
I originally created a company page on LinkedIn instead of a group page. Yes, my social media literacy is somewhat limited. I am not creating a company. At that stage, this is not what I am aiming at.
My two first articles involved fictive characters. Why? Maybe I was afraid to expose myself to the public eye, especially as most of the readers would know me from work and could relate to the situations I was referring to.
But I am naively transparent, and it did not make any sense to use characters in situations “inspired from true events”. I have nothing to hide. That would be the exact opposite of what I want to achieve.
At the same time, I am not only defined by my job title or the organization I work for. I can be myself publicly and talk about my work experiences while making a clear distinction with my day job. Reciprocally, I never talk about The Middle Management Anonymous at the office, unless I am asked about it.
Finally, with zero experience in using social media – I only actively use my LinkedIn account – I got caught into spending too much time reading LinkedIn rockstars content and counting the number of likes my posts were receiving. I quickly stopped as I genuinely do not care.
What I got are numerous humbling and encouraging feedbacks. I literally could not believe that some people would find interest and inspiration in what I am writing.
Just for that reason, I will continue.
I am not sure what The Middle Management Anonymous will look like in three months from now, but I will continue the journey, and I am sure that I will figure out what the next steps will be.
As any significant achievements, I will not do that alone.
I hope The Middle Management Anonymous community will grow, and that together, we will take it to the next level.
What is The Middle Management Anonymous next milestone?
I want to start our podcast, The Middle Management Anonymous Agora.
Like long readings, podcasts will allow going deep into subjects, make first hand middle management experience available to the community and beyond.
I have never done a podcast before. I will experiment and figure it out – with you.
This was my longest blogpost so far.
Not really Instagramable indeed – another opportunity for development I suppose 😊
But this is very much who I am.
I wanted to share transparently my reflections on why and what The Middle Management Anonymous is.
I hope this provides some clarity over my intentions and gives you some reasons to join The Middle Management Anonymous community!
You can contact me directly.
And as always, I will be happy to get your comments and feedback.