I, am a Middle Manager. If you are reading this, then you must be one too.
I live in the middle of my city, in the middle of my state, which just happens to be in the middle of my country (Indianapolis, Indiana USA). Middle, does not mean average. Technically, it means center. Statistically it meas median. Nothing about being a middle manager is average, mundane, or insignifianct, unless a person has decided so, and I have not!
Twenty years ago, when I graduated from engineering school and took a management trainee position in a steel mill, the world was my oyster. Through all of the ups and downs, that really hasn't changed. I am older, a little less bright-eyed, less idealistic, perhaps just a touch cynical, but I still view each day as an opportunity to make a difference. This Earth is going to rotate on its axis no matter what we do. We change what we can touch with our hands, our words, and our very soul. I may not be able to change the world for eternity, but I see each day how things that I have been involved with have affected people, places, and events around me. That is the effect that a middle manager can have.
Upper management, the "C" titles, like CEO, CIO, CFO, COO all have one thing in common. They all begin with Chief. In any organization, whether it is a small family company, a multi-national corporation, a charity, or even a tribe, all need and must have a chief. At my job, where I work for a living, I am not the chief. There may be a day, where I am, but that day isn't today and that doesn't bother me one bit. For a chief to be succesful, he or she needs to have a steady cadre of braves and squaws to lead teams of even more braves and squaws in getting real work accomplished.
The Chief has vision, fueled from a wealth of experience, but the Chief cannot do anything on their own. Even the President of the United States of America cannot win a war, reduce poverty, bolster the economy, or clean our environment. On the contrary, our President can inspire, and lead us to get the job done but he or she, regardless of title, cannot even drive themselves across Washington D.C. without help. In between the Chief and the everyday person, is the manager in the middle, the supervisor, the team leader, the crew coordinator. We are the ones who take the lofty ideals and forward thinking goals and convert them into tasks, assignments, and systems that are used by people to make things happen. What are these things? They are what light and heat our homes, manufacture our automobiles, build our schools, fill the supermarket shelves, fix our roads, and form our communities.
Come back tomorrow and lets see what we can do.
I live in the middle of my city, in the middle of my state, which just happens to be in the middle of my country (Indianapolis, Indiana USA). Middle, does not mean average. Technically, it means center. Statistically it meas median. Nothing about being a middle manager is average, mundane, or insignifianct, unless a person has decided so, and I have not!
Twenty years ago, when I graduated from engineering school and took a management trainee position in a steel mill, the world was my oyster. Through all of the ups and downs, that really hasn't changed. I am older, a little less bright-eyed, less idealistic, perhaps just a touch cynical, but I still view each day as an opportunity to make a difference. This Earth is going to rotate on its axis no matter what we do. We change what we can touch with our hands, our words, and our very soul. I may not be able to change the world for eternity, but I see each day how things that I have been involved with have affected people, places, and events around me. That is the effect that a middle manager can have.
Upper management, the "C" titles, like CEO, CIO, CFO, COO all have one thing in common. They all begin with Chief. In any organization, whether it is a small family company, a multi-national corporation, a charity, or even a tribe, all need and must have a chief. At my job, where I work for a living, I am not the chief. There may be a day, where I am, but that day isn't today and that doesn't bother me one bit. For a chief to be succesful, he or she needs to have a steady cadre of braves and squaws to lead teams of even more braves and squaws in getting real work accomplished.
The Chief has vision, fueled from a wealth of experience, but the Chief cannot do anything on their own. Even the President of the United States of America cannot win a war, reduce poverty, bolster the economy, or clean our environment. On the contrary, our President can inspire, and lead us to get the job done but he or she, regardless of title, cannot even drive themselves across Washington D.C. without help. In between the Chief and the everyday person, is the manager in the middle, the supervisor, the team leader, the crew coordinator. We are the ones who take the lofty ideals and forward thinking goals and convert them into tasks, assignments, and systems that are used by people to make things happen. What are these things? They are what light and heat our homes, manufacture our automobiles, build our schools, fill the supermarket shelves, fix our roads, and form our communities.
Come back tomorrow and lets see what we can do.
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