Middle leadership is a unique construct with attributes distinct from top-down or bottom-up leadership (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2019). While middle leadership shares some attributes with leaders at all levels, the unique attributes of middle leadership occur due to middle leaders’ position in the organizational hierarchy (Berraies, 2020; Grootenboer et al., 2019; Kieran et al., 2020; Lipscombe et al., 2019; Sudirman et al., 2019). Unlike leaders at other levels, middle leaders exert simultaneous management and leadership; simultaneous leadership and followership; and often exhibit distributed leadership (Alvesson & Jonsson, 2018; Bassett & Shaw, 2018; Bryant, 2018; De Nobile, 2018; Grootenboer et al., 2019; Irvine & Brundrett, 2019; Li et al., 2018; Lipscombe et al., 2019; Thornton, 2020).
Simultaneous Management And Leadership
De Nobile (2018) asserted any model of middle leadership should include competencies related to both leadership and management to accurately reflect the duality of role expectations on this leader population. Bryant (2018) asserted a clear differentiator of the middle leadership role is the dual demands of both management and leadership. Grootenboer et al. (2019) also emphasized middle leaders’ unique role requirements for intellectual leadership in addition to managing and facilitating practices. Bassett and Shaw (2018) described the middle leader role as undertaking numerous leadership and administrative (i.e., managerial) roles; noting, however, leadership takes a secondary position to teaching responsibilities for middle leaders in the education space. Irvine and Brundrett (2019) also noted a unique attribute of middle leadership is the requirement to fulfill roles as managers of systems and administration, while also being experts of leading change and developing people to achieve maximum performance potential. Li et al. (2018), Lipscombe et al. (2019), and Thornton (2020) all discussed the dual-nature of the middle leadership role being split between management and leadership, creating a complex web of responsibilities and competencies. Alvesson and Jonsson (2018) were the only scholars to observe middle managers express preference for leadership over management, but middle managers’ roles often demand exhibiting more management competencies than leadership competencies, creating both emotional and cognitive dissonance about middle leadership.
Simultaneous Leadership and Followership
The concept of middle leadership is incomplete without including followership (Jaser, 2020). Alegbeleye and Kaufman (2020) observed middle managers frequently switch between follower behaviors and leader behaviors, and found a correlation between middle manager effective follower behaviors and their leadership competencies. Busari et al. (2019) observed middle managers enact both leadership and followership with particular frequently during periods of organizational change, which suggested middle managers’ role during change is particularly influential. Falls and Allen (2020) also studied middle leaders during organizational change and described their paradoxical leader-follower duality as “agents and implementers” of change as middle leaders interpret senior leadership change initiatives downward and reshape operational expectations upward (p. 25).
By enacting leadership and followership simultaneously, middle managers construct co-identities as leaders and followers contingent upon the differing actors and groups with which middle managers interact, generating internal dissonance in knowing which competencies to employ situationally (Falls & Allen, 2020; Jaser, 2020). Jaser (2020) argued this duality leads middle managers to express “fragility, vulnerability, and doubt” related to balancing leadership and followership (p. 3). Gjerde and Alvesson (2020) agreed, ascribing middle managers with a “two-faced” identity in which middle managers must always be both leader and follower simultaneously. Despite such challenges, according to Falls and Allen (2020), middle managers reported the ability to switch between leader and follower identities as critical to middle leadership success.
Distributed Leadership (DL) For Middle Managers
According to De Nobile (2018), organizations often structure middle leadership as a form of distributed leadership, although middle leadership and distributed leadership should not be considered the same thing. Harris and Jones (2020) also made this distinction, asserting organizations may distribute leadership responsibilities to the middle via leaders in formal middle management roles or by influential team members enacting informal leadership. Numerous scholars (De Nobile, 2019; Edwards-Groves et al., 2018; Harris & Jones, 2020) noted both formal and informal leadership in the middle of the organizational hierarchy are considered forms of distributed middle leadership. Pavlopoulos (2020) agreed, asserting middle leadership responsibilities are frequently “stretched over” multiple middle managers (p. 1).
The effectiveness of distributed leadership among middle leaders is related to their “situated nature” in the middle of the organizational hierarchy, which facilitates strong relationships between staff and senior leadership (Edwards-Groves et al., 2018, p. 317). Merenkov et al. (2019) also described middle leadership as a “manifestation of distributed leadership” advantageous for creating the conditions in which staff improve performance (p. 71). Lipscombe et al. (2019) also asserted middle leading practices organizations distribute across the middle of the leadership hierarchy are more influential in improving employee performance. Distributed middle leadership requires middle managers to leverage their competencies in cooperation across organizational structures and social relationships to achieve leadership outcomes (De Nobile, 2018). Hargreaves and Shirley (2019) agreed, saying middle level leaders tend to lead together in the middle of the organization.
Notably, only the education literature discussed distributed leadership among middle leaders (De Nobile, 2018, 2019; Edwards-Groves et al., 2018; Harris & Jones, 2020; Lipscombe et al., 2019; Merenkov et al., 2019; Pavlopoulos, 2020). Possible explanations for why the business literature excluded distributed leadership as a unique characteristic of middle leaders include middle leadership is more mature in the education domain than the business domain, signaling a gap in the business research; or the organizational context in educational spheres is more conducive to distributed leadership than in businesses. In either case, future research could explore distributed leadership as a possible characteristic of middle leadership in the business domain.
References
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