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Defining Middle Leadership and Middle Leadership Competencies

Posted on May 4, 2023May 5, 2023 by Dr. Julie C. Armstrong, DSL
Leadership Competencies, Middle Leadership

Dr. Julie C. Armstrong, DSL


Defining Middle Leadership

Middle leadership is a unique leadership construct including the leadership responsibilities, behaviors, and competencies required by middle managers to perform as leaders in the middle of the organizational hierarchy (De Nobile, 2018; Kieran et al., 2020; Pavlopoulos, 2020; Thornton et al., 2018; Wei, 2018). Middle leadership – or “leading from the middle” – is a unique construct different in nature from top-down and bottom-up leadership (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2019, p. 93). Existing literature refers to this construct as “middle leadership” or “middle managers’ leadership” or “middle managers doing leadership;” however, scholars consistently identify this construct as distinct from other organizational leadership constructs, such as front-line supervision, senior leadership, or executive leadership (Alvesson & Jonsson, 2018, p. 43; Gjerde & Alvesson, 2020, p. 125; Guerrero et al., 2020, p. 3; Thornton et al., 2018, p. 208). The extant literature also suggests there are leadership competencies middle managers require to perform as middle leaders, thereby improving employee performance (Alamsjah, 2020; Alvesson & Jonsson, 2018; Hoang et al., 2020; Jaser, 2020; Lleo et al., 2020; Paetzel et al., 2019; Way et al., 2018).

Defining Middle Leadership Competencies

Leadership competencies are leadership-related skills or combinations of skills (Wallace et al., in press). Leadership competencies include individual characteristics, knowledge and skills, and behaviors (Diskiene et al., 2019). Middle leadership competencies are the skills middle managers require to perform as middle leaders (Eva et al., 2019; Lleo et al., 2020; Paetzel et al., 2019). According to Ong and Yaqiong (2018), middle leadership competencies having a direct impact on employee outcomes include “job mastery and continuous learning, employee engagement, resource management, result orientation, teamwork and collaboration, innovation and change management, and people management” (p. 9). Examples of other key middle leadership competencies spanning both professional and human skills include communication, interpersonal and relationship skills, managerial skills, decision-making, collaboration and teamwork, creativity and innovation, change leadership and management, motivating others, sensemaking, strategic thinking and implementation, and many more (Alamsjah, 2020; Alvesson & Jonsson, 2018; Basuki, 2020; Berraies, 2020; Inyang et al., 2018; Kieran et al., 2020; Liang et al., 2018; Mazanek et al., 2018; Ong & Yaqiong, 2018; Sudirman et al., 2019). Middle managers who fail to understand the competencies required to perform as middle leaders may experience decreased employee performance (De Nobile, 2018; Thornton et al., 2018; Wei, 2018).

References

Alamsjah, F. (2020). The impact of leadership style and strategy implementation on financial performance-middle managers’ point of view. Journal of Critical Reviews, 7(17), 1703-1711.

Alvesson, M., & Jonsson, A. (2018). The bumpy road to exercising leadership: Fragmentations in meaning and practice. Leadership, 14(1), 40-57. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715016644671

Basuki, J. (2020). Middle manager leadership behavior of government officials in Indonesia. Journal of Advanced Research in Law and Economics, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.14505/jarle.v11.2(48).04

Berraies, S. (2020). Effect of middle managers’ cultural intelligence on firms’ innovation performance. Personnel Review, 49(4), 1015-1038. https://doi.org/10.1108/pr-10-2018-0426

De Nobile, J. (2018). Towards a theoretical model of middle leadership in schools. School Leadership & Management, 38(4), 395-416. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2017.1411902

Diskiene, D., Pauliene, R., & Ramanauskaite, D. (2019). Relationships between leadership competencies and employees’ motivation, initiative and interest to work. Montenegrin Journal of Economics, 15(1), 113-129.

Eva, N., Wolfram Cox, J., Tse, H. H. M., & Lowe, K. B. (2019). From competency to conversation: A multi-perspective approach to collective leadership development. The Leadership Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.101346

Gjerde, S., & Alvesson, M. (2020). Sandwiched: Exploring role and identity of middle managers in the genuine middle. Human Relations, 73(1), 124-151. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718823243

Guerrero, E. G., Frimpong, J., Kong, Y., Fenwick, K., & Aarons, G. A. (2020). Advancing theory on the multilevel role of leadership in the implementation of evidence-based health care practices. Health Care Management Review, 45(2), 151-161. https://doi.org/10.1097/HMR.0000000000000213

Hargreaves, A., & Shirley, D. (2019). Leading from the middle: Its nature, origins and importance. Journal of Professional Capital and Community, 5(1), 92-114. https://doi.org/10.1108/jpcc-06-2019-0013

Hoang, C. V., Nguyen, N. H., Nguyen, L. Q. T., & Tran, M. D. (2020). Determinants of middle managers’ leadership in the Vietnamese economic-defense enterprises. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 7(8), 543-553. https://doi.org/10.13106/jafeb.2020.vol7.no8.543

Inyang, A. E., Agnihotri, R., & Munoz, L. (2018). The role of manager leadership style in salesperson implementation of sales strategy: A contingency perspective. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 33(8), 1074-1086. https://doi.org/10.1108/jbim-09-2017-0230

Jaser, Z. (2020). The connecting leader. Aligning leadership theories to managers’ issues. Leadership, 0(0), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715020981188

Kieran, S., MacMahon, J., & MacCurtain, S. (2020). Strategic change and sensemaking practice: enabling the role of the middle manager. Baltic Journal of Management, 15(4), 493-514. https://doi.org/10.1108/bjm-11-2018-0395

Liang, Z., Blackstock, F. C., Howard, P. F., Briggs, D. S., Leggat, S. G., Wollersheim, D., Edvardsson, D., & Rahman, A. (2018). An evidence-based approach to understanding the competency development needs of the health service management workforce in Australia. BMC Health Service Research, 18(1), 976. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-3760-z

Lleo, A., Viles, E., Jurburg, D., & Santos, J. (2020). Key middle manager trustworthy behaviours that enhance operator participation in continuous improvement systems. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, 12(3), 229-245. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijqss-10-2019-0118

Mazanek, L., Vraniak, L., Murinova, A., & Konecny, S. (2018). Significant leadership competencies at large industrial companies: Results of exploratory quantitative research. Global Journal of Business, Economics and Management: Current Issues, 8(1), 30-37.

Ong, Y. S., & Yaqiong, J. (2018). The relationship between leadership behaviors of university middle-level managers and faculty engagement. Journal of Management and Training for Industries, 5(2), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.12792/jmti.5.2.1

Paetzel, D. W., Quast, L. N., Aroonsri, P., Surya, M., & Hart-Mrema, T. S. (2019). Managerial behavior and performance in China, the UK, and the USA. European Journal of Training and Development, 43(5/6), 505-516. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejtd-09-2018-0094

Pavlopoulos, E. (2020). How to make a difference as a middle leader. Management in Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/0892020620973038

Sudirman, I., Siswanto, J., Monang, J., & Aisha, A. N. (2019). Competencies for effective public middle managers. Journal of Management Development, 38(5), 421-439. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmd-12-2018-0369

Thornton, K., Walton, J., Wilson, M., & Jones, L. (2018). Middle leadership roles in universities: Holy grail or poisoned chalice. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 40(3), 208-223. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080x.2018.1462435

Wallace, D. M., Torres, E. M., & Zaccaro, S. J. (in press). Just what do we think we are doing? Learning outcomes of leader and leadership development. The Leadership Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101494

Way, S. A., Simons, T., Leroy, H., & Tuleja, E. A. (2018). What is in it for me? Middle manager behavioral integrity and performance. Journal of Business Ethics, 150(3), 765-777. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3204-9

Wei, Y.-C. (2018). The department chair’s troubles: Leadership role of middle managers. Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 21(4), 100-111. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/1555458918767481

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