Truth About Middle Managers

The term "middle manager," is only known by the few that have worked within a major corporation and experienced the position. To put it simply, middle managers are employees who are not managing at the executive level, but instead are below them managing deeply within the company. Paul Osterman noticed that never before had anyone ever studied in depth middle managers and the problems they insure, so he set forth to change that. Osterman interviewed fifty middle managers from 2004 to 2005. The managers were from different locations and pooled from two companies, Fleet Bank and TechCo. His research is incredible and provides an insight to who middle managers are and what problems they face. In Chapter five, Osterman specifically assesses the problem of climbing the corporate ladder, which is extremely relevant to those coming out of college ready to make it big. Middle management is deeply affecting business and the happiness of all employees' within any corporation. This book is extremely useful for those people so they don't become another statistic.

The specific things that Osterman points out are the troubles with a broken system along with the extreme challenge for women to get to the top. I think that most middle managers could greatly benefit from the use of Organizational Behavior to be more satisfied with their work. For example, the most common problem with middle management is that many of them are working hard, but fail to be recognized. I would change this by using organizational commitment. Since continuance commitment does not exist, and based on the book is not likely to improve, I would use a combination of affective commitment and normative commitment. This would require the boss of a middle manager to take certain actions. Simply investing time into them so they feel they owe you something, along with increasing reasons why they want to stay. Make them feel like they have a purpose and once they start to enjoy their work hopefully more connections are built. Also the use of motivation, specifically intrinsic motivation, will help to make every manager feel important. Osterman also points out how there are broken systems, which are discussed directly within our textbook. A strong business will have a bureaucratic, mulit-divisional, or matrix structured business. All of these structures offer accountability and a well-strung chain of command. By following any of these, employees can easily see where their next employment opportunity is, and they will thus strive to meet that goal.

Osterman specifically targeted the problems with "climbing the corporate ladder," in chapter five, and backed it up with some impressive observations. He noticed that in many corporations there is no longer a obvious line of becoming an executive. Instead he noticed many people being moved all over companies, and a lack of any motivation for these positions. He noticed that many current managers do not know what is next for them in their careers, which is how a lack of purpose begins. Next as individuals age, their "internal fire dampens," leaving them with low expectations and ambitions. Osterman blames this on middle managers not being recognized for all of their work. Specifically he mentions, " What they do is relatively invisible and hard to capture in clean measures." It is evident that if middle managers need more recognition for what they do. If this isn't done than the problem will never get better.

The next issue that is brought up is the difficulty that women have if they wish to climb the corporate ladder. Most promotions today are made off of a combination of