By: Allison McCarthy, MBA | amccarthy@barlowmccarthy.com
Leadership challenges are rampant in healthcare organizations today. But one group of leaders- middle managers- may have the toughest job of all. Investing in professional coaching to support them in their critically important role pays dividends to their organizations.
A recent analysis by McKinsey reported in Becker’s Hospital News found that strong middle leadership is critical to positive outcomes, from improved financial performance to talent development.
Opportunity Cost
Lack of support results in high turnover. More than half of middle managers are actively looking for a new job, and only about a third report being engaged at work, according to a recent Gallup poll.
Source: The Manager Squeeze: How the New Workplace Is Testing Team Leaders
In an environment rife with workforce shortages, losing talent is something no organization can afford. Yet coaching is often unavailable for middle managers. Recently, I have seen middle manager requests for coaching declined and being redirected to the health system’s classroom training as the only option.
Professional development is most successful when a range of offerings is in place simultaneously, including:
- Formal training
- Individual or group coaching
- Assigned mentors
Organizational policies limiting access to coaching fail to recognize its potential impact on strategic results as well as future leadership bench strength.
Why Middle Managers Need Support
For middle managers, stressors come from both sides. When results are lackluster, frontline managers push back, citing resource gaps and broken operational processes. At the same time, senior leadership is pressuring middle managers to generate ever larger margins, faster, but often with the same or fewer resources.
As I coach leaders in practice management, physician relations, and physician recruitment, I observe that middle managers struggle with priority setting, decision-making, and communication techniques. They are often unprepared, or under-prepared to lead a larger scope of responsibility.
So, it didn’t surprise me when a vice president of business development recently shared with me that he was most concerned about the lack of connection between middle managers and frontline managers.
The problem is, they are trying to lead using skills and approaches that worked for them in a frontline management role — when they oversaw a smaller group and could make quick decisions around day-to-day operations.
The authors of Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work stated in an interview with McKinsey, “As they take on more of the middle management roles, excellence in what they did becomes less important. Excellence in coaching, developing people, making connections across the organization, demonstrating creativity, connectivity — all of those things become more important.”
Middle managers may struggle to translate all the knowledge and insight they have gained into a development strategy for new managers. They may lack confidence and don’t know where to look for role models or mentors to help them learn new leadership skills. Above all, they may fear exposing their vulnerability to their direct senior leader and their peers.
As the pace gets faster and faster, anxiety only intensifies, and to compensate, they may take on more tasks and work longer hours to meet expectations. They may spend far more of their time on administrative tasks than on developing their team of frontline managers.
Breaking the Cycle
This is a cycle that can be broken. Professional coaching is a solution that works. With professional development support, middle managers can identify their unique leadership styles and talents, ease the burden of acting as a liaison between frontlines and C-suites, and become facilitators in the elusive but all-consuming quest to improve employee engagement.
And it’s not just the middle manager and their team who are enriched. Research[1] has demonstrated a proven ripple effect — that leaders who receive professional coaching improve psychological wellness across the organization.
To learn more about the coaching experience, contact me at amccarthy@barlowmccarthy.com to schedule a brief conversation and talk through your specifics.
[1] O’Connor and Cavanagh, “The coaching ripple effect: The effects of developmental coaching on wellbeing across organizational networks,” June 28, 2013.