Middle management motivation: a state of choked potential

Abstract

Middle managers are expected to play a critical role in translating organisational policies and strategies into practice and action. They have an important role in providing information/input to strategy formulation, and in motivating and energising employees at lower levels but studies in some large Indian organisation in both the public and the private sector show that these managers themselves feel like {victims| and experience a sense of powerlessness in their organisations; they are the ones who express the most negative emotions about any organisational change effort; they feel a sense of stagnation in terms of real personal and professional growth inspite of receiving promotions at fairly predictable intervals; they assume a yspectatorz rather than an yactorz stance in the organisation; and they do not see themselves as a part of the {real| management. As a result, the middle and senior management performance remains far below the potential.