Have you ever felt expected to lead your team without real authority as a middle manager? Or wondered why anyone should listen to you when it seems like upper management will undo your decisions anyway? If so, you’re in the right place.

This article is for every middle manager who feels stuck between responsibility and limited control. I see the work you’re doing, and today we’re tackling three key areas:

1. How to make a meaningful impact even when your authority feels limited
2. A mindset shift that will help you stop questioning your value as a middle manager
3. How to rally your team behind decisions you don’t fully agree with

First, let’s start with a feeling many middle managers know well: being caught between frustration at leadership and questioning your own capability.

Before we go any further, hear this—you are most likely not the problem. 

Could we all refine our approach? Of course. 

But in many organizations, the real issue lies in the structure and culture that make the middle management layer incredibly challenging.

Middle management is tough. You’re expected to lead up, lead down, and influence across without always having the authority to back it up.

But before we move on to the three things I believe you need to do to be an effective middle manager, I want to have a quick heart-to-heart. I want you to ask yourself: Do you truly lack authority, or have you assumed you don’t have it?

Often, managers wait, adapt, and accept constraints instead of asking for clarity or advocating for what they need. I don’t want that for you. So below, I’m breaking down three things you need to do if you’re struggling as a middle manager (that I hope will provide some immediate relief for you!).

1. Have a Clear, Honest Conversation With Your Manager. 

There’s no way around it, this is the first thing you should do if you feel like you’re struggling to be an effective middle manager.

When you have this conversation, make sure you show up composed and grounded, not emotional or defensive. Come prepared with data and real results that show where you could have driven better outcomes if you’d had the authority to act.

And when you’re advocating, shift your language. Instead of saying, “This is what I need,” position it as, “This is what the business needs to achieve our goals.”

I’ve seen managers in my New Manager Accelerator program take this step and experience two kinds of outcomes:

1. Their leader genuinely didn’t realize they felt so limited and granted them more authority.
2. Their leader didn’t think they were fully ready, yet, but they worked together to define a clearer, mutually agreed level of autonomy.

Either way, it’s a solid step in the right direction.

2. Focus on Being Useful > Feeling Important

One of the things I see middle managers struggle with the most is feeling like they aren’t important. And my advice on this? Will likely surprise you. Because first, I want to ask you something: why is feeling important the goal? What if you shifted that focus toward being useful instead?

When you lead from usefulness, your impact grows—and eventually, so does your recognition. Your calendar fills with meaningful work, your influence expands, and people naturally begin to see your value.

Holding on to this need to feel important won’t move you forward. 

In fact, it can cause you to show up in ways that aren’t productive—and I’ve seen that happen more times than I can count. But if you let go of chasing importance and instead focus on becoming important through your actions, your influence will expand, your results will speak louder, and you’ll often feel happier and more confident in your role.

In my experience, this is one of several key mindset shifts every successful manager has to make. It’s a big one, and it deserves more space than we have in this blog post. I go much deeper into this (and others) in my free training for new managers, because mastering these mindset shifts is foundational to elevating your leadership and building a truly high-performing team.

3. Learn How To Sell Your Team On An Idea You Don’t Believe In

Lastly, there’s one more really common challenge that comes with being a middle manager that we haven’t touched on yet: having to sell an idea to your team that you don’t actually believe in. 

Now, I’ve got to tell you, the answer here is multifaceted, but I’m going to simplify it for the sake of space.

First things first, you need to ask questions of the decision-maker, which is most likely your manager. Your goal isn’t to poke holes in the decision. Your goal is simply to understand the “why” behind it.

Best-case scenario, you walk away with more clarity and you actually feel bought in, which of course makes it easier to communicate to your team. However, if you still don’t feel aligned, because fundamentally you just see things differently, then you need to do two things:

1. Make a firm decision to support the direction anyway. At the end of the day, only one person can steer the ship, and in this situation, your role is to support that direction.
2. Try to understand the intent behind the decision and trust that the intent was a good one. Maybe you don’t agree, but do you at least understand their “why”?

Both of these things, either the resolve or just getting the internal clarity you need, will help you show up and communicate in a way that feels authentic.

Getting Support as a Middle Manager

Like I mentioned above, middle management is hard, and not everyone is cut out for it. Some of us simply don’t enjoy the tension that comes with being sandwiched in the middle. But my hope is that this article gives you the best possible chance at making it work so you can truly give it a shot and then decide if it’s right for you.

There’s no denying that there is so much more that goes into succeeding, not just as a middle manager but as a leader in general. And as you’ve likely noticed by now, it can be a pretty lonely place. Without support and practical guidance, you’re left with a lot of trial and error, which can create even more self-doubt.

Growing in Your Role As a Middle Manager

And in case you didn’t know, I’m here to help you grow as a new manager. One of my students actually said it best:

For me, what has made a tremendous difference is the direct link we have to you — being able to use you as a sounding board. I reach out to you on things that don’t even necessarily have to do with the content we’re learning in the program itself. I bounced the capacity-planning idea off you. Then, I reached out to you on quality assurance because I know you worked in that area, and you probably had some insights to share there.

You can’t get that from the YouTube channel. Yes, your content is great — I mean, that’s what led me to you. But if that’s what you get from YouTube, just imagine what you get in the actual program. It’s way more, for sure.

Your performance dashboard was the center of what we built our performance framework around. My entire team-training program for this year is built off templates from the program — all things I had a vision to do with my team, but I honestly wouldn’t have even known where to start without those templates.

So I think, again, the amount of tools we get equipped with, plus the lessons themselves, it goes way deeper than what people see on YouTube. The videos are really just a sliver of what you offer. They’re great supplements, but the program goes way deeper than that.

If someone was sitting on the fence about joining the program, I would literally tell them: just do it. If you’re committed to becoming the manager you want to be, an awesome-sauce manager, and you want to get there quickly, you should join. Just take the plunge. Just do it.

Join My Free Training To Become a More Effective Leader

My free new manager training is the perfect next step. I walk you through the five pillars of my Elevate Team Performance Framework—the roadmap for becoming the kind of leader who builds a truly high-performing team. I’ll see you there!