You know the type: The frustrated middle manager with an overflowing inbox and overbooked calendar, who always misses emails and is late with vacation planning.

The frustration can also be found in the boardroom. Why doesn't the expensive middle manager come up with more visions and ideas for developing the organization? And why don't they make more decisions themselves?

As a CEO once said to me: "My middle managers ask me everything all the time. But I don't need questions - I need solutions"

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Three typical reactions

In my experience, this type of frustration often stems from an unclear and unfocused strategy in the organization.

Research from the Franklin Covey Institute shows that only 49% of employees know the goals of their company strategy. And only 15 percent can tell what the goal is, even if they know it.

The same research shows that only 54 percent of employees know what they need to do to help the organization achieve its goals. And only 12 percent can tell how success is measured in the organization.

When middle managers don't know the strategy and direction, three things can typically happen:

1. They become apathetic and duck in daily life. The goal becomes protecting their own department.
2. They get burned out. Because they never know when they'll succeed.
3. They do what they find most interesting. Because it certainly makes sense on a day-to-day basis.

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ALSO READ: The CEO's response reveals whether alarms should be flashing

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It is the strategy - stupid

The reactions are understandable, but they are also poison for an organization in the long run.

Of course, a middle manager can be miscast, but in the vast majority of cases, the root of the problem lies with the top management itself because the direction and strategy is unclear.

If top management can't articulate a clear direction and look for a clear strategy, it becomes difficult for middle management to deliver.

If top management has taken the time to develop a clear strategy with clear goals that can be translated into concrete, meaningful action plans, then the middle manager really needs to be miscast for things to go wrong.

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Involvement - the effective way

Top management cannot formulate a successful strategy alone. A strategy that works requires the purposeful involvement of the organization. The word alone can give some top managers tics. Long workshops, boring slides and expensive consultants.

And yes - if no one knows where the company is going, involvement is a waste of time at best.

But if top management takes the first steps. Asks the tough questions. Identifies the right dilemmas. Insist on the use of data. And connects the analysis of the present with the goals for the future - then there is a framework in which middle managers' knowledge can come into play.

It doesn't require two fully catered days at a distant conference center. If the work is structured and taken in the right steps, top and middle management can go a long way in a short time - in the nearest meeting room or virtually.

It doesn't just make for a long-lasting company. It also makes for long-lasting middle managers. No one can ask others to set sail if they don't know the course.

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This column is published on Jyllands-Postens Finance and in Jyllands-Posten, Business on March 18, 2022.