Who’s Minding the Middle? Rethinking leadership in the space between vision and execution.

"It’s in the space between vision and execution that organisations either build momentum — or lose it."

It’s also the space that’s quietly shifting under our feet.

I used the Bank Holiday to catch up on some of the reading I’d flagged over the past few weeks. It’s something I try to do regularly — carve out space to look at what others are seeing and saying — but more often than not, the day-to-day wins. This time though, two things stood out and stayed with me.

One was Aon’s 2025 Employee Sentiment Study, a data-led look at how people are feeling in their working lives right now. The other was a Harvard Business Review article on the future of middle management — a theme that’s been gathering pace in leadership circles for some time.

At first, they seemed unrelated. But in reading them together, something clicked — not a red flag exactly, but a prompt. A sense that there’s a quiet shift happening in many organisations, one that’s worth a closer look.

The Quiet Shift

The HBR piece captures a familiar trend: many organisations are flattening — streamlining structures, reducing headcount in the middle, and leaning into automation or team-based models to handle the work that once sat with managers.

There are sound reasons for this. Speed matters. So does cost. And in some cases, legacy management layers really have become bottlenecks rather than bridges.

But here’s the part that can get overlooked: while the structures may change, the leadership work still remains.

Someone still has to interpret strategy. Someone still needs to help people navigate uncertainty, connect effort to impact, and reinforce cultural expectations in practice — not just theory.

What we’re seeing isn’t so much the elimination of middle management — but its evolution. The title may fade, the reporting lines may flatten, but the need for that connecting function remains.

Signals From the Field

That need is echoed in Aon’s data. The 2025 study shows that while many employees feel broadly stable, engagement scores have dipped — particularly among those at management level. Managers are reporting lower optimism and lower confidence in their ability to grow.

At the same time, they’re seen — rightly — as essential to delivering performance and sustaining culture through change.

That’s a tension worth noticing — it raises a simple question: are we enabling this layer to deliver what the business now expects of it?

A Leadership Development Consideration

So what does this mean in practice?

For some organisations, it may mean rethinking what the “middle” role actually entails. Less traditional management, more facilitation and influence across functions. For others, it may be about providing sharper clarity — and better tools — for those who now lead without the formal structure that used to hold that space.

And while structure plays a part, capability is what really makes the difference.

This layer — however it’s defined — needs the capacity to lead through ambiguity, manage emotion, and hold direction under pressure. These are the very themes I see again and again in coaching conversations: not just what to do, but how to be in the middle of change.

In that sense, investing in this space isn’t sentiment — it’s strategy.

A Thought, Not a Campaign

This isn’t a defence of middle management as it once was. Nor is it a call to maintain outdated layers for the sake of familiarity. It’s simply a recognition that the human work of translating vision into reality hasn’t gone away — and someone still needs to do it well.

So if you’re restructuring, evolving, or simply looking to strengthen how leadership happens across your business, it may be worth asking:

Is there clarity in this space?
Is there capability in this space?
And if not, what would it take to build it?

Final Thought & How to Get in Touch

I’ve seen what happens when this layer is supported — not just with good intentions, but with the right investment in capability and clarity. It changes how decisions land. It improves alignment. It strengthens culture.

If this space is shifting in your organisation — or if you're trying to build a leadership culture that holds under pressure — I’d be happy to talk.

📩 Email me at anthony@anthonyomara.com
🌐 Visit www.anthonyomara.com