There is lots of literature about how to get to the top of your profession. By comparison, there is much less information about how to be a good middle manager.
The term middle management is an amorphous term. It can be someone who manages two people as well as an SVP who manages a global workforce. "Middle" does not adequately describe the range of responsibility such a manager has.
That said, I came across a terrific description of what a middle manager can be when I read Kurt Streeter’s New York Times profile of Ron Adams, assistant coach of the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors. His boss is head coach Steve Kerr, who is an exemplar of what it means to lead with skill as well integrity.
Ron Adams may not look like your typical assistant coach. For one, he’s bothered by a creaky back and is the second oldest coach in the NBA at age 70, many years Kerr’s senior. That said he is as contemporary as they come when it comes to devising a strategy and tactics to play defensively as well as with speed and skill.
Adams is a former head coach but it was not his ticket to success. He migrated to the NBA as an assistant and has remained there for decades. Kerr was looking for someone who could be his truth teller and one who wasn’t looking to leapfrog into a head coaching job. (One of Kerr’s previous assistants is Luke Walton who filled in for him when he was sidelined with back surgery; Walton piloted the team into the championship and moved to take a head-coaching job with the Los Angeles Lakers.)
What Adams, as Streeter makes clear, brings to the table is straight talk. An assistant is a go-between player and coach, one who relates to them as a person as well as a player. Assistants don’t have the authority of the player when it comes to playing time but they do have influence. More importantly, they know each player's strengths as well as his weaknesses. Good ones like Adams find ways to shore up the former while ameliorating the latter.
There is something else that Adams brings to the team – a willingness to change. For example, it took him awhile to learn to tolerate the hip-hop music the players loved to play during shootarounds and in the locker room. He has also learned to ease up on his own management style.
Adams knows now head coaching gigs are behind him. But he is still learning, still perfecting. “I try to be an artisan,” he told Streeter. “There is a purity to teaching as an assistant — a virtue in being a craftsman and having a craft. It’s the nuts-and-bolts stuff that appeals to me, and the relationships.”
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Managing from the middle is a balancing act. You want to do your best by helping the team and the boss succeed. Good middle managers do these things well:
- Understand the big picture – where the organization is headed;
- Root out problems – find a way around or through obstacles that derail lesser teams;
- Work with colleagues – live by the mantra: from me to we; and
- Speak the truth.
Good middle managers are not yes people. They gain credence through their competence, diligence and conscience.
