INTHEBLACK June 2022 - Magazine - Page 57
“You’ve got to make a decision as a CEO of what
point do you stop being a practitioner and start being
a leader. And the minute that you step away from
being the best practitioner in the business, you need
other people to step into that role, and that’s your
B-Suite,” Houghton says.
Rapid turnover can also be avoided if middle
managers are used to help create a pipeline for
succession – to prepare the next middle management
team before they leave, says Marshall. “There is a
turnover in any business – and you want a level of
churn, because otherwise it gets very stale – but it can’t
be too much. So, if you have effective middle managers
in place, they’re developing your next team for when a
key person leaves.
“Good succession is the outcome of solid
development,” she says.
“I worked with a client recently who had one
retirement and one resignation from their leadership
team. And because they’ve been doing so much robust
development, they had two internal candidates who
dropped straight into those two roles. That kind of
internal movement inside a business just saves you so
much time and effort.”
Middle managers who are valued and respected
can also help prevent silos from occurring across the
organisation.
“Middle managers can encourage their staff to
look up and across the organisation, rather than just
narrow and deep in their patch. If you don’t have that
working properly, then you get this fragmentation in
your organisation and you can get these silos. And of
course that’s toxic for any business, no matter what
size you are,” says Marshall.
HOW TO GET THERE
A strong and empowered middle management team
will only be as effective as the people who make it up.
At the core of a middle management role is people
management, and that is not a skill everyone has.
“There’s plenty of people in any organisation who
like being an influencer, but don’t want to be a people
manager. And there’s quite a lot of people who don’t
like being an influencer.
“You need to be quite specific about what you’re
looking for, because if you get people managers who
don’t want to be influencers, you end up with the paperpushing type – they like the authority but they don’t
want to exert the influence to drive motivation and
collaboration,” says Houghton.
intheblack.cpaaustralia.com.au March 2022 57