Why no one wants to be a manager any more
Most organisations say they run on strategy. In reality, they run on middle managers.
And we’ve turned one of the most important jobs into one of the least attractive.
That takes some doing.
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth. The most dynamic, creative and effective managers are often found in the middle. Close enough to the front line to understand what’s really going on. Senior enough to make things happen. They translate. They improvise. They get things over the line.
But this is also where you will find the burnt out, the cynical and the quietly disengaged. Careers that have stalled. Energy that has drained away. People who have seen one too many “transformation programmes” come and go.
Same layer. Very different mindsets.
And increasingly, fewer people want to join them.
Recent research should worry anyone serious about performance. Surveys from the Chartered Management Institute and Deloitte show younger employees are reluctant to step into middle management roles. The verdict? Too much hassle. Too many expectations. Not enough reward. In some studies, over a third say they would rather not manage people at all.
A generation ago, management was the prize. Now it looks like a penalty.
We haven’t got a pipeline problem. We’ve got a product problem.
We’ve broken the role.
Look at what we ask of middle managers.
Deliver stretching targets. Implement decisions you didn’t make. Keep teams engaged through constant change. Manage performance and wellbeing. Drive EDI. Cut costs — while staying positive.
Then we give them less support, less autonomy and, thanks to endless restructures, fewer peers to share the load.
In an era of AI, hybrid working and flatter structures, you would expect middle management to matter less. In reality, it matters more.
It’s no surprise some opt out before they even start. And those who stay too long without support don’t become wiser. They become tired. And sometimes toxic.
Take a large UK council I worked with during a major restructuring. Layers were stripped out to create a “leaner, more agile” organisation. On paper it looked impressive. In practice, middle managers inherited bigger teams, more complex roles and less access to senior decision-makers.
Absence went up. Engagement went down. The same messages kept coming up in staff surveys — “no time”, “too much change”, “decisions made above us”. One manager told me they spent more time explaining decisions than making them. Several quietly stepped back from promotion rounds the following year.
Senior leaders initially blamed “resistant managers”.
But when they sat in on team meetings and one-to-ones, the reality was obvious. These managers weren’t resistant. They were overwhelmed. And they were being asked to carry the emotional weight of decisions they had little hand in shaping.
The usual response is to blame the individual.
“They’ve gone stale.” “They’re resistant.” “They’re the problem.”
No. They are a symptom of the problem.
Poor management is the biggest barrier to organisational performance. And middle managers are where poor design shows up first.
You can’t outsource the emotional labour of leadership. And then criticise those doing it on your behalf.
So what should organisations do?
First, fix the job. Be honest about the workload. If the role requires ten hours a day, redesign it or reduce expectations.
Second, stop modelling bad behaviour. If senior leaders glorify busyness and dodge accountability, others will follow. Culture is what you tolerate.
Third, give middle managers real authority. Responsibility without control breeds cynicism.
Fourth, invest in management, not just leadership. Handling conflict, giving feedback, managing workload — this is where performance is won or lost.
Fifth, use your cynics. Engage them early. They will tell you where things will fail.
Finally, make the role attractive again. Recognise it. Reward it. Make it a career destination, not a holding pen.
If your best people won’t do the job, the job is the problem.
Because the truth hasn’t changed. Organisations run on their middle managers.
The question is whether we continue to run them into the ground.
