Leading with Agility: Middle Management in Hierarchies

According to Robert Walters, more than 52% of Gen Z professionals have expressed disinterest in middle-management roles. For many organisations, this may feel like a warning. Yet, the reality remains that the middle layer is where strategy meets execution and decisions turn into action.

In an era of continuous disruption, the question is no longer whether change will happen, but how quickly and skilfully. And for middle managers, this is both the challenge and the opportunity: to lead with agility, within a structure that still demands control. 

In this context, it becomes essential to understand why leading with agility matters beyond the title of being a middle manager, the dilemmas these leaders encounter, and how they can move from being the “sandwich‐layer” of a hierarchy, to the key drivers of organisational impact.

Why Agility Matters Beyond Just Supervision

Agility is often associated with CEOs or start-ups for their ability to pivot, adapt, and innovate. In fact, it is even more critical at the middle level, where strategies are interpreted, resources allocated, and teams mobilised.

Middle managers are often the ones who translate vision into practical actions, manage cross-functional priorities, and sustain team engagement amid shifting goals. When they lead with agility, they enable responsiveness to ripple through the organisation. But when they operate in a purely supervisory mode, focused on control, compliance, and routine delivery, they risk becoming bottlenecks instead of bridges. Without agility at this middle layer, communication slows, alignment fractures, and even the best strategies could end up failing in execution.

In Singapore’s public healthcare system, transformation has accelerated under initiatives such as HealthySG and the digitalisation of patient services. These shifts are not driven by policymakers alone, but also by middle managers in hospitals and polyclinics who operationalise strategies into frontline practice while balancing patient safety, innovation and operational continuity. When they act with agility, they create momentum; when they don’t, change stalls at the ward or department level.

Over the past five years, aAdvantage Consulting has partnered with one of Singapore’s leading healthcare clusters to strengthen these very capabilities, helping middle managers build confidence, alignment, and agility within a highly hierarchical environment. This work highlights a key insight: agility is not just a leadership ideal, but a learnable, repeatable discipline that enables organisations to adapt and thrive even in complex systems.

The Reality of Middle Management

If agility is key to staying relevant, then middle managers are its most critical (and unfortunately, most strained) custodians. Sitting between competing expectations, they carry the weight of both strategic intent and day-to-day execution.

It’s no surprise, then, that middle management is often described as the “most stressful” tier of the organisation. In fact, recent research by Harvard Business Review found that middle managers report lower psychological safety than both frontline employees and senior executives, leaving them least likely to speak up, take risks, or challenge decisions that might be misaligned with reality. 

This lack of safety and space for reflection has tangible consequences. When feedback loops break down, innovation slows; when decision rights are unclear, accountability blurs; when time pressures dominate, even well-intentioned managers default to firefighting rather than forward-thinking.

Compounding this are structural and cultural tensions that few talk about openly:

Compressed time and competing priorities

Middle managers juggle meetings, reports, and operational issues, often leaving little bandwidth for strategic thinking or coaching their teams.

Micromanagement from above

In hierarchical systems, leaders further up may seek reassurance through control. Yet this inadvertently strips autonomy from the middle, dampening initiative and ownership.

Ambiguity and limited direction

When top-level strategies are still evolving, middle managers are expected to interpret unclear goals, align diverse teams, and make decisions without the full picture.

Cultural inertia

Even when structures encourage collaboration, long-standing habits and siloed mindsets can slow innovation.

Within Singapore’s public healthcare system, middle managers balance patient care, manpower constraints and new service models, all while safeguarding the non-negotiable priority of patient health and safety. They are expected to drive change, yet also to ensure that no system failure compromises care.

This “dual accountability”, for innovation and stability, is what makes their challenge unique. It’s not merely operational pressure; it’s a constant balancing act between progress and protection. Unless leaders at this level are equipped to act with agility and confidence within those constraints, transformation cannot cascade meaningfully through the organisation.

Shifting Mindset and Agency

If middle managers are caught between competing pressures, how can they move from feeling constrained to leading with influence?

The answer begins with a mindset shift: recognising that even within rigid hierarchies, agency exists. Agility does not require authority; it requires intent, clarity, and the ability to act decisively within one’s circle of influence.

Equally vital is systemness – the ability to think and act beyond one’s immediate function, recognising how local decisions impact the organisation as a whole. Where agility drives adaptability, systemness ensures alignment. Together, they enable middle managers to act quickly without losing sight of the bigger picture.

Middle managers who embrace this mindset do not wait for reform to be handed down but translate it into daily behaviours that turn agility from concept into habit. The following behaviours bring this mindset to life:

Making Time for Strategic Thinking

Dedicate time to step above operational tasks and reflect on priorities. Sharing insights with leaders using data or quick wins demonstrates the value of this time and frees capacity for higher-value work.

Seeing Change as Opportunity

Adopt a growth mindset – viewing change as a chance to learn, experiment, and iterate. In healthcare, middle managers who treat digital rollouts as “learning pilots” tend to see higher engagement and smoother adoption.

Empowering Teams, Not Just Managing Them

Build psychological safety by encouraging dialogue, acknowledging mistakes as learning, and trusting teams to act. Coaching rather than controlling multiplies decision-making capacity and strengthens resilience.

Translating Strategy into Actionable Steps

Break complex objectives into clear deliverables, define decision rights, and communicate the rationale behind decisions to maintain alignment and adaptability.

Influencing Beyond Authority

Use credible data and stories to advocate for ideas aligned with organisational priorities. In healthcare, linking proposals to patient safety or care continuity drives faster buy-in and collaborative action.

Agility is ultimately a behavioural choice. Through these practices, middle managers regain agency over how they respond, influence and shape their culture, creating alignment, responsiveness and long-term adaptability.

Bringing It Together

Hierarchy remains, but leadership is ultimately behaviour, not position. Middle managers who act with agency, empower their teams, and model agile behaviours transform from constrained operators into key drivers of organisational impact. They ensure critical issues are flagged early, decisions are timely, and momentum is sustained – all while balancing competing priorities and safeguarding outcomes that matter most.

Whether the outcome is patient safety in healthcare, regulatory compliance in finance, or customer trust in service, it rests on middle managers acting decisively within their sphere of influence.

Activate Agility in Your Organisation

Whether you are at the top, in the middle, or across functions, you can create alignment, psychological safety, and open dialogue that allows your organisation to adapt, innovate, and thrive.

Our work in Business & Culture Transformation is grounded in this understanding: that real change begins when leaders at every level are empowered to act with agility. If your organisation is ready to strengthen agile leadership at middle management levels – accelerating transformation, improving execution, and embedding a culture of empowerment – aAdvantage Consulting can help.

Learn more about our 1-day Leadership Commitment to Organisation Transformation Workshop, designed to help leaders turn alignment and empowerment into real-world results. You can also explore our Leading with Agility Training Programs, which equip middle managers to translate strategy into action and lead with confidence, adaptability, and influence.