The middle manager: administrator or leader?

In many cases you could replace the middle manager with an administrator.

That is an uncomfortable sentence. I still think it is true more often than we want to admit.

In the organizations I have worked in (startup, public sector, large corporation) I have seen the same pattern. Middle managers below department level end up in a position where they effectively administrate. Salary reviews. Sick leave reports. Rehabilitation plans. Holiday scheduling. Performance reviews following a template. Operations meetings with agenda items no one prepared.

That is not the manager’s fault. It is the system’s. The organization gives them responsibility for people but rarely the mandate to make decisions about the business. They become intermediaries. Upward, they report what leadership wants to hear. Downward, they pass on what leadership has decided. In the middle, they sit with a role that is neither strategic nor operational.

The question I keep asking: what does the middle manager contribute beyond administration?

At best, they bring closeness to their team. They notice when someone is struggling. They pick up signals that do not show in reports. They create trust by being present. That is valuable. But it assumes the manager actually has time and space for it. And they rarely do. Administration eats the time.

At worst, they contribute nothing beyond administration. They function as an extra layer of communication that slows decisions, filters information and creates an illusion of leadership.

The most overrated competence in large organizations is not technical expertise or sales ability. It is career competence. The ability to navigate internal politics, position yourself correctly and avoid risk. It is Survivor, but with salary negotiations.

The subject matter expert (the person who actually knows their field) rarely has the most successful career. That person is too valuable where they sit. They do not get promoted. They get administered.

Now add AI to the picture. AI makes the administration trivial. Sick leave reports, scheduling, summaries of performance reviews, status updates. Everything that today takes 60 percent of a middle manager’s time can be automated within a few years.

What remains is the question: what did the middle manager actually contribute?

If the answer is “closeness, judgment and trust” there is an argument. If the answer is “they forwarded information and approved holidays” we have a problem.

This is not about being against middle managers. It is about asking whether we designed the role to create value, or whether we designed it out of habit.