There is a “difficult conversation” that continues to be postponed in Portuguese organizations, and in European ones more broadly: what organizations are going to do with middle managers.
For decades, this layer has been the backbone of companies. It has been responsible for translating top management strategy into concrete tasks, ensuring the flow of information, and maintaining alignment between leadership decisions and on-the-ground execution. It fulfilled that role for a long time, and it fulfilled it well.
The problem is that the context that justified this role has changed radically, and most organizations have not yet fully realized it.
This is not a single shift. It is three happening at once, reinforcing each other.
Technology has eliminated much of the work that once filled a middle manager’s day-to-day: reporting, operational coordination, and execution control. Tools that once required a dedicated person to feed and interpret them now do so on their own, or almost. At the same time, market volatility has made any decision-making process that requires going up three levels before getting an answer unsustainable. And newer generations, who are no longer all that new, simply do not function well in structures that treat them as executors without a voice of their own.
The result is visible: many people in the middle of organizations have spent recent years managing processes that no longer need managing, validating decisions that could be made further down, and reporting upward information that was already available before the meeting even started.
I have observed this phenomenon closely across a range of sectors. What concerns me most is not the obsolescence of certain functions, which naturally tends to occur as the way tasks are performed evolves. What concerns me, as a manager, is how many companies are reacting.
The dominant trend has been to treat this as a structural problem: reduce layers, flatten hierarchies, cut costs. This approach has some financial logic, but it misses the point. Eliminating layers without changing the leadership model solves nothing; it merely spreads confusion across fewer people.
The real challenge is not having fewer middle managers. It is having completely different middle managers.
The new profile does not supervise. It provides context. It does not control execution. It creates the conditions for others to make good decisions. It does not hoard information to maintain power. It shares it to accelerate outcomes. It is both demanding and enabling, a duality that is difficult to master.
To evolve their teams to this level, companies need to make decisions that many avoid because they are uncomfortable.
The first is to invest seriously in training, using the term with precision rather than as a euphemism for a one-day workshop each year. This means a structured effort, with continuity and measurable impact. For some managers, the path is upskilling: developing competencies the role has always required but that were never properly cultivated, such as critical thinking, managing ambiguity, communicating in uncertain contexts, and sufficient digital literacy to understand what technology can and cannot replace. For others, the path is deeper: a genuine reskilling that involves relearning what it means to lead when formal authority is no longer the primary tool. These transformations are not achieved through occasional training. They require development programs that combine formal learning, exposure to different contexts, and close support over time.
This distinction matters because not all middle managers are at the same starting point. Some need to refine skills that already exist in an early form. Others need a more profound transformation in how they understand their role. Treating everyone the same, with the same program, at the same pace, and with the same objectives, wastes resources and, worse, creates the illusion of change when nothing transformative is happening.
There are other equally critical dimensions. Companies must be honest about who within their current middle management has the conditions to make this transition, and who does not. Not everyone who has competently controlled processes for years has the capabilities required to lead through context and trust.
The new middle managers must communicate decisions to their teams in a credible way, not just in speech, but in processes, formal authority, and the ability to make mistakes without disproportionate consequences. Delegating decisions while maintaining the need for constant validation is not delegation. It is micromanagement and a waste of resources and talent.
Finally, it is essential that companies review their evaluation systems. If managers continue to be assessed based on short-term metrics and the absence of problems, few will have the courage to grant real autonomy to their teams. Incentives shape behavior, and the wrong incentives produce the wrong behaviors, regardless of what is written in mission and vision statements.
We are going through a shift that will define which organizations have the capacity to respond in the coming years. This is not a management trend. It is a matter of basic functionality.
Companies that can rethink this critical layer and invest consistently in the development of the people within it will be faster, more adaptable, and better able to retain talent with real capacity to contribute. The others will continue holding meetings about meetings that lead nowhere and wondering why nothing ever changes.
Marta Lima, Executive in Residence for Executive Education at CATÓLICA-LISBON