Stuck in the Middle: Why Mid-Level Leaders Face Unique Identity and Loyalty Conflicts
Middle managers report some of the lowest engagement scores across all organisational levels, according to Gallup.
According to
Gallup’s 2025 State of the Global Workplace report, manager engagement fell from 30% to 27% in 2024, which was the sharpest decline of any worker category. Meanwhile, individual contributor engagement remained flat at 18%. This "engagement gap" is particularly severe for female managers, whose engagement plummeted by 7 points in a single year.
The middle manager is the most neglected, yet most critical, link in the corporate chain. If they aren’t engaged, the rest of the organization doesn't stand a chance.
Emily Field, McKinsey Partner and co-author of Power to the Middle
Mid-level managers are caught between strategy and execution, authority and accountability, company loyalty and team empathy.
While new leaders receive structured onboarding and senior leaders get executive coaching, mid-level managers are often left to figure it out alone. They carry the weight of both worlds without the support systems designed for either.
This is where burnout builds. This is where companies lose their best people. And this is where performance gains are most often left on the table.
This article explores the unique internal and systemic challenges that mid-level leaders face and how organisations can design better support for those stuck in the pressure zone.
What Makes Middle Management So Stressful?
Most mid-managers describe their role like this:
- "I lead a team."
- "I manage operations."
- "I wear too many hats."
Recent 2025 data from Microsoft and Zoom indicates that middle managers spend an average of 35% of their work week (roughly 14 hours) in meetings. Even more concerning, 37% of leaders report that these meetings often have no clear outcome. This administrative and coordination load leaves them with less than one-third of their time to focus on actual talent development and people management.
Here's what that really means:
They are being squeezed from both sides.
From the top:
- More targets
- More change
- Less clarity
- Less time
From the bottom:
- More emotions
- More needs
- More uncertainty
- More resistance
And in the middle sits one person – expected to absorb it all.
It shows up as:
- Constant tiredness, even after sleep
- Resentment masked as over-functioning
- Endless meetings with little movement
- Delayed decisions due to risk overload
- Sunday nights that feel like dread, not rest
And, no, this isn't a time management problem – it's a nervous system under sustained load.
The Physiology of the "Squeeze"
To describe the middle management "squeeze" as just being about workload would be reductive. This squeeze is a sustained threat environment that triggers automatic stress responses.
When mid-level leaders face high accountability with low authority, their nervous systems activate survival modes: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. These are biological responses to environments where control feels limited and stakes feel high.
Fight manifests as leaders becoming overly directive, defending decisions aggressively, or taking on excessive work to maintain control.
Flight appears as calendar overload to avoid difficult conversations, decision avoidance, or mental disengagement masked by operational busyness.
Freeze shows up as analysis paralysis, second-guessing, or emotional numbness when every option carries risk.
Fawn involves over-accommodating senior leaders, absorbing team frustration, and maintaining peace at personal cost.
Most leaders cycle through these responses depending on context and accumulated stress. The issue isn't the responses themselves but their persistence. Without recovery, authority, or psychological safety, the nervous system never resets. Cortisol stays elevated, strategic thinking narrows, and empathy becomes inaccessible.
Burnout at this level often looks like withdrawal, not collapse. Supporting mid-level leaders requires redesigning the role itself, not merely teaching better coping mechanisms for an inherently dysregulating environment.
According to a
study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, employees in these "active-passive" conflict roles show significantly higher cortisol markers. They aren't simply tired; they are biologically "flooded," meaning their prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain responsible for the very empathy and strategic thinking they are hired for – effectively goes offline to prioritise survival
Why Middle Manager Burnout Goes Unnoticed
Too often, leadership development stops at front-line management training and reappears at the executive level. Mid-level is treated as a "figuring it out" zone.
This gap creates:
- High turnover among high performers
- Low engagement scores
- Strategy that stalls in execution
- Burnout and disengagement that spreads downward
Poor mid-level retention drives up hiring, training, and productivity costs across the board. Yet most organisations still don't see middle management as a strategic investment.
They see it as a transition phase.
This is the fundamental mistake.
69% of people say their
manager has the same impact on their mental health as their spouse.
The 7 Internal Challenges Mid-Level Leaders Face
While business context matters, most strain is amplified by internal blockers and psychological tensions.
Here are seven that often go unnoticed:
1. Multiple, Conflicting Identities
Mid-level leaders must toggle between strategist, operator, people leader, and "good organisational citizen."
Each identity pulls in a different direction:
- The strategist wants to pause and think
- The operator needs to execute now
- The people leader feels the team's exhaustion
- The organisational citizen must project alignment
This creates constant internal negotiation and identity fatigue.
2. Boundary-Spanner Strain
They translate senior strategy into reality for teams while also advocating upward for their people.
The problem is that they often belong fully to neither tribe.
Senior leaders see them as implementers. Teams see them as management. This liminal position creates isolation and role ambiguity.
3. Authenticity vs Performance Pressure
They're expected to project alignment and confidence even when they privately disagree with strategy or decisions.
Over time, this creates emotional dissonance and inner erosion. The gap between what they think and what they say widens. Eventually, it becomes difficult to access their own judgment.
4. Loyalty Conflicts
Caught between loyalty to the company and empathy for the team, mid-level leaders feel trapped in a chronic tug-of-war.
They must:
- Explain change they didn't create
- Absorb reactions they can't fix
- Maintain motivation while managing their own doubts
This tension is exhausting and rarely acknowledged.
A 2025 leadership study by
High5 found that
71% of middle managers in the U.S. report being burned out, a higher rate than any other worker group, including the C-suite (at 14%). Furthermore, managers are 24% more likely to consider quitting in the next six months compared to their direct reports.
Middle management is the place where strategy goes to die, or where it is born into reality. We treat it like a waiting room, but it’s actually the engine room.
Brent Cassell, Vice President of Advisory in the Gartner HR practice.
5. High Accountability, Low Authority
Mid-level managers are held responsible for results – performance, cost, engagement – without equivalent influence over:
- Strategy direction
- Resource allocation
- Organisational priorities
- Cross-functional dependencies
This gap undercuts agency and leads to burning frustration and learned helplessness.
6. Cognitive Overload and Emotional Burnout
The combination of unclear strategy, conflicting demands, and limited power leads to:
- Decision fatigue
- Chronic stress
- Emotional depletion
- Guilt about not doing enough
To be clear, this isn't burnout from overwork. It's burnout from internal contradiction.
Middle managers have had so much piled onto them. Their development and well-being have often been an afterthought. Resiliency starts with having a strong middle management team that's able to drive strategy into reality.
Emily Field, McKinsey & Company
7. Navigating Organisational Politics
Mid-level leaders must influence without authority, work through informal power structures, and speak up carefully.
It's a constant dance between courage and career risk. One wrong move can sideline them. Too much silence makes them invisible.
This political navigation is rarely taught but constantly required.
How Is Mid-Level Leadership Different from New Manager and Senior Leader Challenges?
These challenges are not simply "more intense" versions of new manager struggles. They are qualitatively different.
| New Managers | Mid-Level Leaders | Senior Leaders |
|---|---|---|
| Gaining credibility | Competing systems and strategies | Setting organisational |
| Delegating for the first time | Political ambiguity and influence without authority | Board relations and external stakeholders |
| Holding peers accountable | Team motivation and constant change | Strategic decision-making with authority |
| Learning basic team rhythms | Emotional labour of translating tension up and down | High visibility and clear authority |
| Identity: "Can I lead?" | Identity: "Who am I here, with these limits?" | Identity: Established and recognised. |
Despite the complexity of the role, a Deloitte 2025 Human Capital Trends survey found that 36% of managers felt they were not sufficiently prepared for the people-management aspects of their job. Additionally, Gartner research reveals that 75% of HR leaders admit their managers are overwhelmed by increased responsibilities, yet 70% state their current leadership programmes are inefficient at equipping them for these challenges.
Mid-level leadership requires a distinct skillset: influence without authority, emotional regulation under sustained pressure, and the ability to hold multiple competing truths simultaneously.
We teach people how to delegate tasks, and then we teach them how to lead a vision. We rarely teach them how to handle the crushing weight of being the middleman for both.
Jennifer Jordan, Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at IMD Business School
5 Strategies to Support Mid-Level Leaders
Support for mid-level leaders must match the complexity of their role. This includes:
1. Coaching for Internal Capacity, Not Just Skills
Give mid-level leaders space to process their own pressure, clarify identity, and restore emotional bandwidth. Help them develop their coaching skills.
This is less about “soft skills” and more about staying in the role without burning out. They need:
- Psychological safety to name tensions
- Tools for emotional regulation
- Identity work around role ambiguity
- Boundary-setting without guilt
2. Structured Peer Forums for Real Talk
They also need real talk, not another framework. Create trusted peer spaces to share how they're really doing and learn from others in the same seat.
Effective peer forums:
- Meet regularly (monthly minimum)
- Have psychological safety as a foundation
- Focus on dilemmas, not solutions
- Are facilitated by someone outside the hierarchy
3. Train for Influence, Not Just Execution
Help them build influence across functions, communicate up and out, and navigate politics with clarity and confidence.
Key development areas:
- Stakeholder mapping and influence strategies
- Managing up with impact
- Cross-functional collaboration and conflict resolution
- Political awareness without cynicism
4. Redesign Workflows to Reduce Systemic Friction
If 70% of their time is spent fixing broken systems, start there. Reduce friction, clarify priorities, and empower local decision-making.
Practical changes:
- Audit meeting load and eliminate non-essential gatherings
- Clarify decision rights at each level
- Reduce approval layers for routine decisions
- Create escalation clarity, not escalation bottlenecks
5. Recognise the Role as Strategic, Not Transitional
Middle managers are not just "in between." They are the link between intent and execution, strategy and reality.
Treat the role as leverage, not limbo:
- Include them in strategy conversations, not just execution briefings
- Invest in their development as heavily as senior leaders
- Recognise their influence on culture, retention, and performance
- Create career paths that don't require leaving the role to advance
What Causes Middle Manager Burnout?
Middle manager burnout is ultimately caused by the accumulation of internal contradictions:
- Being held accountable without having authority
- Projecting confidence while privately doubting
- Absorbing emotions they cannot fix
- Navigating competing loyalties with no clear resolution
- Maintaining multiple identities that pull in opposite directions
These pressures create a state of chronic internal conflict. Over time, the nervous system cannot sustain it.
The result is not dramatic collapse. It's gradual withdrawal, disengagement, and eventual departure.
We have spent decades optimizing the 'process' of middle management while completely ignoring the 'person' in the middle. We are seeing the limits of human resilience when accountability is divorced from agency
Dr. Linda Hill, Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and author of Being the Boss
Final Thought: Middle Managers Are Not Failing, but They Are Being Flooded
They are expected to:
- Coach people
- Deliver outcomes
- Absorb emotions
- Translate strategy
- Navigate politics
- Maintain alignment
All at once. And often invisibly.
The elephant in the room? The cost.
The cost of manager turnover is staggering. Replacing a single mid-level manager typically costs between 50% and 200% of their annual salary when accounting for recruitment, onboarding, and the roughly 28 weeks it takes for a new hire to reach full productivity. Conversely, when managers receive effective coaching training, their own engagement rises by 22%, and their teams' engagement increases by 18% (Gallup).
The solution is not just to ask less of them. It’s to support them differently. To recognize that mid-level leadership is not a transition phase – it’s a distinct role that requires distinct support.
Bryan Robinson, Ph.D., Author and Psychotherapist specializing in workplace burnout
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About the Author
Lucy Philip, Purposefully Blended, Founder
Lucy Philip is the multi-award-winning founder of Purposefully Blended, a boutique Learning and Development Consultancy that blends learning design expertise with high-impact leadership practices to drive sustained behaviour change.
Purposefully Blended has established a strong reputation among pharma and healthcare organisations for developing leaders at all levels through tailored programmes that demonstrate highly significant, measurable impact.
