In Power to the Middle, McKinsey consultants Bill Schaninger, Bryan Hancock and Emily Field argue that the ‘middle manager’ is key to organizational success. Long maligned (often by McKinsey), the manager is in fact responsible for delivering objectives, addressing underperformance, building trusting relationships, and resolving team conflicts.

In this week’s episode of The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ross Garner, Ross Dick and Nahdia Khan discuss:

· why managers are so important

· the role of ‘manager’ vs ‘individual contributor’

· how to develop better managers

The book, Power to the Middle, is available now.

Our report, ‘Building Better Managers’, is also available now.

In ‘What I Learned This Week’, Ross D recommended the podcast series Slow Burn.

Nahdia discussed cloud seeding.

Ross Garner discussed the paintings of John Atkinson Grimshaw, via @CulturalTutor.

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtools.com/business. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Or become a member to support our show! Visit mindtools.com and use the offer code PODCAST15 for 15% off an individual subscription. This offer is for new subscribers only and can’t be used with any other offer.

Connect with our speakers 

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with us on LinkedIn:

· Ross Garner

· Ross Dickie

· Nahdia Khan