One of the most difficult leadership positions in business today is also the most common: the "leader in the middle."
If you lead people and answer to someone else, as most of us do - a boss, shareholder/s, client/s and/or customers - you are among the millions of "leaders in the middle."
The newly released book, by business and leadership writer, Nathan Jamail: ‘Serve Up, Coach Down: Mastering the Middle and Both Sides ofLeadership’, shows leaders in the middle just how powerful they are without pretending that leading employees and reporting to bosses don't require different skills. It fills the gap between the books those leaders read and the information they actually need and answers the big questions that constantly confound leaders and their businesses, such as:
• Why do leaders who care about their teams still struggle to gain their boss's approval?
• Why do those same leaders who feel they serve their teams have so much difficulty getting teams to step it up and go beyond the basic requirements of their jobs?
• Why do leaders have issues getting other divisions or units in the organisation to do more, so that their teams don't have to do more than their share?
The answer: Leaders in the middle too often serve down to their people and defend up to their bosses, instead of serving up to their bosses and coaching down to their employees.
This is why so many companies struggle to innovate and get stuck…leaving everyone frustrated and looking for answers. Serve Up, Coach Down changes all that.
"It's time to challenge the traditional notions of servant leadership and learn to serve up to your bosses, serve out to your peers, and coach down to those you lead with humility, selflessness, and confidence."
Great leaders don't feed their people fish; they coach them on how to fish for themselves and then beat the competition by catching more fish. Those people in return serve their leaders and the people those leaders report to by delivering maximum performance for the business.
Achieving that performance, however, requires leaders in the middle to focus, have confidence, and commit to changing their mindsets.
Reference: Nathan Jamail: 2018. ‘Serve Up, Coach Down: Mastering the Middle and Both Sides of Leadership’.
