For decades, companies have been trying to find a way to get employees to be more motivated.
Some have tried to raise salaries, others have tried bonuses, employee-of-the-month plaques, team-building exercises, pizza Fridays, wellness programs, flexible schedules, or free coffee in the office (and the coffee is the cheapest one imaginable).
Every few years, a new management theory comes along, promising to revolutionize the workplace and unlock the secrets to engaged employees. Despite all this, it seems disengagement is still the norm and burnout is rampant. People are leaving well-paying jobs for seemingly little reason, while at the same time, refusing to budge from lower-paying ones.
What gives? What does it all mean?
The popular answer is simple: money is the most important motivator.
On paper, it makes intuitive sense. People need money to survive, and more money usually means more luxuries. Seems logical, seems good. The problem is it’s only half true!
Money is an important motivator, surely, but it’s a motivator for getting a job, not for doing a good job. This is an outstanding distinction, because most companies don’t have trouble finding people willing to do the work. Getting people through the door is the easy part.
Finding people willing to go above and beyond, solve problems, hone their skills, help out their coworkers, and really care about the job – now there…THERE’s your real challenge. Those things can’t be bought, and no, the old adage of “everyone has their price” doesn’t actually work.
You’ll soon find out that as you increase the salary to keep up the good work & dedication, it goes up and up and up, becoming unsustainable. Then, sensing a shiver down your spine and a feeling of dread, you will quickly realize it was never about the money…but now you’re in the red.
Money Isn’t the Villain, and It Never Was
Before diving into the subject matter, it is important to dispel a common misconception that often surrounds discussions of motivation. In many cases, articles on the topic present the premise as a choice between paying employees well and providing them with motivation at work.
In some cases, they go so far as to list “ways to motivate employees without spending money.” This is not an accurate perspective, however, as fair compensation is a necessity, and not a variable that should be bargained with.
If someone has to pay rent, cover utilities, feed their children, and buy groceries, motivation is most definitely not a priority.
If people are aware that they are significantly underpaid in comparison to their peers, motivation is not a priority.
If salaries barely see an increase from year to year, while workloads and expectations remain steady, motivation is not a priority.
In all of these cases, money is the determining factor in an employee’s attitude and performance. It is an obvious point, but one that is often overlooked by management in favour of other, less effective, motivators.
Money may not solve every problem, but it certainly helps in many cases. Few other motivators hold as much power when it comes to financial concerns. Therefore, it is plain to understand that fair pay is the foundation upon which motivation is built, rather than the other way around.
Or, to put it in less academic terms: you cannot simply replace a raise with a pizza party.
The Difference Between Showing Up and Caring
One reason this myth was born is that compensation really does change behaviours.
Pay someone more, and they will be more inclined to join your company. Offer someone a substantial bonus, and they will be motivated to perform better so that they can receive it. This is known as extrinsic motivation, and it works. Extrinsic motivation is real, and it is important. Without it, few individuals would willingly commit to forty hours of unpaid work each week.
However, once a person’s most basic needs are met, additional increases in compensation motivate them less and less. That’s where intrinsic motivation comes into play.
Think about it:
Why is it that some people always seem to seek out better ways of doing their jobs while others are quite happy to do the tasks that are simply required of them?
Why do some teams manage to stay enthusiastic about their work while others burn out at the same salary?
Why do some talented individuals choose to stay in their current position at a lower wage rather than move to a new company?
Why do some employees remain deeply committed to an organization despite receiving offers with higher salaries elsewhere?
Why do people willingly go above and beyond for one manager, yet do only the bare minimum for another?
This is the motivation that comes from within. Once people stop thinking about how money affects them, they start to think about how their work affects them.
People will rarely change their behaviours for a different paycheck if they feel that there is no impact beyond whether or not they can afford the food on the table and a roof over their head.
If they do not feel that their work has meaning, that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves, that they matter, then they are unlikely to put in extra effort.
Motivation Is Not a Transaction
Perhaps the easiest mistake to make when it comes to motivating employees is thinking it can be bought. It can’t.
Companies often act as if motivation is something they can hand out like another type of compensation: raises, bonuses, employee recognition, wellness programs, benefits packages.
Now, to be clear, all of these are important, but none of them are motivation. Motivation comes from somewhere else. It comes from the relationship between what employees put in and what they feel they get out: trust, opportunity, recognition, respect, growth, autonomy, fairness, meaning.
It all adds up when you think about it. When employees feel as if they are no longer getting what they believe they deserve in return for their efforts, it doesn’t just affect their opinions of the company. It has a direct impact on their willingness to put in that effort in the first place.
It happens gradually, almost imperceptibly at first.
People stop trying to contribute.
They stop experimenting.
They stop advocating for their ideas.
They stop caring.
None of these things occur because they’ve decided the work itself isn’t worth it, but because they no longer feel it is.
That, in the end, is the real reason for any drop in performance: not a change in the work itself, nor a shift in the challenges they face, but a feeling that the effort it takes for the rewards isn’t worth it.
A far easier way to think of it is that people rarely stop working because they’re doing something hard. They stop working because they’ve decided the rewards for getting it done aren’t worth it.
What Actually Keeps People Motivated?
If fair payment is the basis, what else is missing?
This is a question many psychologists and economists have asked for decades. Their main focus has been on finding the correlation between motivation and pay. The different perspectives have led to different conclusions. However, almost every theory boils down to one main idea, which, funnily enough, is also true for almost every aspect of human life:
People will only stay motivated if their work continues to satisfy certain criteria.
One of the theories, which has some strong points, is the Self-Determination Theory, or SDT for short. It focuses a lot on the quality of motivation.
Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, the psychologists who came up with it, believe that researchers should not think about motivation being high or low. Instead, the emphasis should be on the type of motivation a person is showing.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Aren’t Opposites
Most people have heard of the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
To keep matters brief, the former refers to one’s inner drive to engage in an activity, whereas the latter is one’s desire to engage in an activity to gain some reward from outside.
While the ideas behind this division are not wrong, they are often misinterpreted since those who promote this view suggest that intrinsic motivation is good and that one should only strive for it. In contrast, extrinsic motivation is presented as bad, and one should even go so far as to actively shun it.
In reality, the truth, like people, is more nuanced and multifaceted. Few people are driven purely by one factor alone, and their motivational factors are usually intertwined and cannot be easily decoupled.
If one wants to become a competent software developer, one has to study and learn the subject matter regardless of any rewards that society offers. However, most developers choose this career solely because of rewards and benefits, such as high pay, opportunities to work remotely, and job stability.
Similarly, few nurses engage in their work purely for personal satisfaction, and most are motivated by the desire to help others, coupled with the ability to earn a comfortable income.
While some salespeople might love what they do and find fulfillment in building relationships with clients, most aim for career growth and the additional income that comes with it.
Likewise, many teachers enter the profession because they genuinely enjoy educating others and making a difference in young people’s lives, but they also expect stable employment, career progression, and compensation that reflects the importance of their work.
From an employer’s perspective, the best course of action is to make sure that their employees’ extrinsic motivations are well taken care of so that their work does not become a chore and they can continue bringing their best performance on the job.
Autonomy Creates Ownership
One of the most effective ways to predict long-term motivation is surprisingly simple: people want some level of control over how they work.
Autonomy does not mean having no accountability or being completely independent in all aspects of work, but rather, having enough freedom from a controlling force to feel trusted in making decisions without being dictated at every step.
Think about the difference between two contrasting office environments.
A well-oiled machine; everyone knows their place, what is expected of them, and how to do it.
A loosey-goosy environment, with laid-back guidelines, but more trust & confidence in their employees to figure out how to get the work done, even in a crisis.
Both have equally competent workers, but which one do you think has the potential to create truly motivated employees?
Well, let’s answer this question by saying ownership breeds motivation. People who have a sense of ownership in their work are more likely to think beyond what is asked of them and how they can make a difference. They see a problem before it is brought to them and take initiative in fixing it. They think beyond their job title and do the work because they want to, not because they are told to.
As can be seen, this has absolutely nothing to do with accountability or lack thereof, but rather the feeling that they have a personal investment in what they do.
Trust fosters a sense of ownership, and that leads to motivation, or in a more modern-worded take: people want to feel that they have a say in how they do their work.
Mastery Makes Improvement Rewarding
Think of any skill that you’ve learned over the past weeks, months, or years: driving, cooking, programming, writing, teaching, or playing an instrument.
At first, you were most likely, probably not very good. You must have made lots of mistakes, and the work was hard, but THEN…then something magical happened. You started to get better. Things that were once hard became easy, and problems that seemed impossible became doable.
This stoked a warm feeling deep inside, and your brain got hit by wave after wave of dopamine as you neared the solution to your challenges. The feeling only got greater as you saw yourself improving. Psychologists call this urge to improve mastery.
Many companies fail to realize how important mastery is. Most people don’t just want a job. Some do, but eventually, after many dreary eves pass, even such individuals crave more.
They want a career
They want to learn and grow
They want to be challenged
They want to become experts in their field
They want to get better every day
If you stop challenging your employees, you’ll start to see a drop in curiosity. They’ll still be putting in the hours, but they’ll feel like they aren’t really accomplishing anything, and your ambitious employees will get hit much harder by this than the average staff member.
That’s why companies that invest in making sure their employees are constantly learning and improving usually see much more than just an increase in technical skills. They send a message to their employees that they care about their future.
In other words, employees are much more likely to stick around if they feel like they’re constantly improving.
Purpose Gives Effort a Reason
There is this phrase that most people never actually get to experience and is uttered in almost every mission statement: “Our people are our greatest asset!”
(If good taste would allow it, they’d add 3 !!!, and then the next company would do 4, and soon it would turn into an !-measuring contest)
Purpose, as a concept, has followed suit much in the same way, sadly. It has become one of those hollow words that is overused in the corporate world, to the point it has become a meme.
It is lamentable because a sense of purpose is one of those things that can be incredibly motivating for people. Purpose doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re doing something that will change the world. It just means that you know why you’re doing what you do.
A customer service rep who helps angry customers return products
An engineer who makes the widgets that people use every day
An accountant who keeps the company’s finances in order
A janitor who ensures that the hospital is a clean environment for its patients
An IT technician who keeps the systems running so hundreds of colleagues can do their jobs without interruption
A warehouse worker who ensures that products reach customers accurately and on time
They might not all be earth-shattering jobs, but they all have value, a sense of purpose, meaning, and impact on the world. What’s important is to realize that the thing they’re doing isn’t just something that they do for the sake of it. It needs to be something that they do for a reason, a purpose – that’s when it becomes transactional: do this for me, and I’ll give you that.
It’s not a bad system, and there’s nothing wrong with it. For some people, that’s all they need. For many people, though, eventually, it becomes dissatisfying. They stop caring about doing the thing and start caring about why they should do the thing. That’s when the “I just want more money” becomes a problem. That’s also when people stop thinking about the task at hand and start thinking about why they should even care about it.
It’s much harder to answer that question with a raise because money can’t achieve that. It can’t tell you why you should care about what you do. It can give you a reason to do it, but not a reason to care.
Money talks to your wallet. Purpose talks to your soul.
The Hidden Motivators Organizations Overlook
By now, you should already know that motivation is not produced by a single source. It is generated through a multitude of interactions, and it can be created or destroyed by hundreds of tiny occurrences. Pay and perks matter, as does autonomy, professional development, and purpose.
However, there are additional factors that have a significant impact on an employee’s motivation and engagement in the workplace in the long run. The crucial point is that these factors are rarely mentioned during job interviews: they are usually discussed in exit interviews.
Fairness Builds Trust
Imagine two similar employees: same salary, similar-ish work, equivalent ratings. Yet, out of the two, one always seems to get the plum assignments, public praise, endless cheer, and opportunities for promotion.
Now, the question at hand becomes: how long until the other begins to ask pungent, uncomfortable questions? Not long, I’d wager.
This is due to the fact that one factor stands out as an extremely powerful motivator: the perception of fairness.
Fairness in the workplace goes far beyond pay, as important as that is. It is the great equalizer, and it also entails consistency in how decisions are reached for things such as promotions, assignments, workload, kudos, mistakes, and communication.
People may be willing to accept outcomes they do not like, but they are much less tolerant of confusing circumstances. When it comes to explaining a decision, transparency seems to have an enormous impact on whether people will accept it. Give people enough information that they can understand a choice, even if they are not happy about it, and they will be much more likely to accept it than if they are in the dark and suspect something negative might be lurking.
When employees begin to feel as if they are getting less than they deserve, it is rarely productive to argue the point directly. Compensation issues, for example, are often emotional affairs, in which employees are apt to ask themselves not only how much they are being paid, but whether they are being treated fairly. By that, they often mean, how does my employer feel about my contributions?
Compensation is one of those tell-tale signals of how much value a company feels like it is getting out of its employees. The company is constantly sending out signals via compensation levels, and the truth is often hard to disguise, even when no one is discussing it openly.
Recognition Validates Contribution
Recognition is one of the most misunderstood concepts in modern management.
Many companies have turned it into a token, almost-jokey gesture: a monthly award, a thank-you note, an article in the company newsletter, a gift card.
While all these things may have their value, they fail to address the most important aspect of recognition: the simple fact that people care whether what they do matters. Recognition is valuable because it reassures employees that their work has not been in vain.
It is a response to the question “did what I do actually make a difference?” which is especially important when talking about demanding, difficult jobs.
“If I put my heart and soul into a challenging task and, when it finishes, nothing is said about it, does it mean it was not worth doing? Maybe it does not matter to me, but most likely, it will affect my motivation to do similarly demanding work in the future.”
Recognition is valuable because it reassures employees that someone has noticed and that what they do matters to somebody. It should be noted, however, that recognition, in many ways, is a tool that can only be used effectively in a good workplace.
If the company culture is unhealthy, and employees feel like their work is not valued, recognition gestures will do little to reassure them. They will see them as hollow tokens, attempts to manipulate them.
Recognition cannot fix rotten foundations. It cannot compensate for constant underpayment or lack of appreciation. It should not be used in bad faith, as a way to cover up management’s mistakes.
In simple, clear terms: pizza parties don’t fix broken workplaces.
Progress Is One of Motivation’s Strongest Fuels
Think about the last time you went all out trying really hard on some project. Now imagine there are two possible outcomes:
You see results. Things are coming together. You are improving. Things are getting done.
Despite your best efforts, things seem to get nowhere. One week seems much like the next. Problems arise, often in the same places. Goals appear ever distant, and your efforts seem to vanish up the memory hole, never to be remembered again.
Which would make you feel better? Which would make you want to keep working? How do we feel when we are reminded that too many workplaces are inadvertently creating the second situation for their employees?
Too many of us are working without the benefit of seeing the value of our efforts. Studies on worker motivation have shown that a sense of making progress is one of the most important factors in influencing positive emotional reactions toward work. That doesn’t mean we should expect huge leaps forward or giant achievements.
It means that people need to see some form of forward movement to feel good about what they do. It could be small steps. It could be baby steps, but people need reassurance that they’re actually getting somewhere. Some progress makes people feel their work has value. Without it, everything seems pointless.
That’s why effective leaders acknowledge and celebrate progress all the time, not just when people reach the end goal. It’s not that people don’t need goals or don’t care about rewards, but because forward movement answers the silent question, “Are we really getting somewhere?“
As long as the answer is “Yes,” then people can remain motivated. When the answer starts to sound more like “I’m not sure,” then well…that can be demotivating.
People don’t need to finish the race each and every week. They just need to know they are still running towards the finish line.
Burnout Isn’t a Motivation Problem
Burnout is often attributed to something that happens when employees “just lose their motivation.” That’s a reductive view of what it means to experience burnout. It isn’t that sudden; it usually results from a slow process of exertion with decreasing perceived psychological return.
The workload increases, or the rewards for said work decrease, and the worker’s relationship with their work deteriorates. People begin to feel ineffective, powerless, unable to accomplish the things they think are important, even if their work itself doesn’t change.
People who suffer from burnout continue to perform their tasks because they feel like they have to, not because they feel like it has meaning or value. Most people can handle hard projects, long working hours during important periods, unexpected problems, and high levels of responsibility. What they can’t handle is feeling like all of their hard work is wasted, stagnant, irrelevant, or unnoticed.
When companies have people who are burned out, the default question is rarely “how can we incentivize these people to perform better?” but rather “what made them feel so devalued in the first place?” These are two completely different lines of inquiry with very different solutions.
Final Thoughts
This article started with a simple myth: money is the greatest motivator.
Like many myths, this one has a grain of truth. Money does matter – it satisfies basic needs, reduces stress, attracts people to the organization, and indicates whether the company cares about its employees. In other words, ignoring the importance of money would be foolish.
However, it is only one factor influencing workers’ motivation. A more critical source of motivation is an individual’s perception of their work and how they are treated within the workplace.
Employees are more likely to be motivated if they realize their efforts make a difference, they improve themselves, their performance is valued, they can rely on their colleagues, and they are not stuck doing the same tasks. Such motivation is fragile, as it takes care to create the aforementioned circumstances.
Many people think of motivation as a binary indicator: either individuals are motivated to work, or they are not. In reality, motivation is more of a continuum. This is why people need to feel their contributions are worthwhile, and they can rely on their colleagues. Organizations should focus more on nurturing a culture in which employees understand that their work matters. It will enable them to achieve greater productivity as motivated individuals will be more likely to go above and beyond.
In today’s exceptionally modern times, there is no reason organizations shouldn’t strive to make employees feel that both money and non-monetary aspects of work are adequate. After all, people are unlikely to quit doing their tasks because they do not enjoy them. They are more likely to leave if they perceive no value in their efforts. People only experience dissatisfaction when their efforts do not provide them with rewards they want. Therefore, an organization should ensure that employees feel rewarded both intrinsically and extrinsically.
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Motivation is more complex than a paycheck. Build the knowledge and skills to manage employee performance with a broader understanding of what drives people at work through Certified Employee Performance Management
The Myth: Feedback Automatically Improves Performance
We’ve been told for decades that feedback is an agent for improved performance. If that were true, annual reviews would produce high-performing teams, generic comments would influence behaviour, and being told you “need to do more communication” would make you communicate better.
None of that has been shown thus far to work in any capacity. Furthermore, organizations don’t appear to be starved for feedback. In most, performance reviews happen annually, managers talk to people one-on-one regularly, there are post-project discussions, and feedback is “offered” in casual conversations. Employees continue to rack up “satisfactory” performances with write-ups, and employees’ careers are littered with commentary in the vein of “needs development in A, B, and C,” yet continue to repeat their same errors and get stuck in the same traps. The issue stems from the inability to give people the kind of feedback they might be receptive to.
This in particular is a really crucial distinction: feedback, on its lonesome, is just information.
Information becomes development in four areas:
Understanding
Acceptance
Retention and Translation to Behaviour
Action
Fail any of these four, and feedback may have been delivered, but it hasn’t been useful. This is where a deeply cherished organizational myth crumbles. So many leaders believe that they have “delivered the feedback” and thus have “done” the change development side themselves; the remainder is up to the employee.
Research clearly shows it does not work that way. In 1996, research conducted by Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi undertook a meta-analysis of hundreds of studies of feedback interventions. While many feedback interventions were helpful, the research found that nearly a third of feedback interventions actually caused people to do worse.
This then begs the question: if feedback was so good for people’s performance, why would it be negative one-third of the time?
Such a realization clarifies why simply giving feedback isn’t the issue; rather, it’s the quality of that feedback across these different areas, as only good feedback develops behaviours.
Why Most Feedback Fails to Improve Performance
Unfortunately, most workplace feedback is not very useful. If you’re in a managerial position, think about what your employees hear every day:
“You need to be more strategic.”
“Improve your communication skills.”
“Take more ownership.”
“That didn’t turn out well.”
On the surface, these are all well-intentioned pieces of feedback. They acknowledge that something needs to change, but they don’t answer the most important question:
What, precisely, do I need to do differently?
Without this question, feedback is mere judgment and becomes an exercise in frustration. Imagine telling a person to “do a better job of taking care of their health.” Should they get more sleep? Exercise? Eat differently? Reduce stress? Drink more water?
The advice is not wrong; it is simply so broad that it is impossible to act on and will just be taken as something given in bad faith.
The same is true of workplace feedback. Telling your employee to “communicate better” leaves them with no direction on what behaviour to modify, when & how it needs to change, and how success will be assessed. Employees typically end such meetings knowing they didn’t meet expectations, but still unclear on what “different” looks like.
Clarity gives people confidence while vagueness makes them hesitate, and hesitation has a cost.
Employees unable to see what “good” is may second-guess their decisions, delay taking action, become silent rather than speak up, or fall back on familiar work patterns rather than try something new. We thus run into this weird scenario where the goal of feedback-to-performance-improvement can actually decrease this ratio.
Timing causes another major problem.
The annual or semi-annual performance review is the norm in many organizations. By the time the manager and employee gather to discuss an employee’s work, the events in question may have transpired months earlier.
Human brains are not wired to learn from events distant in the past; details, along with context, are lost, and emotions often overlay objective observation. Instead of an opportunity for improvement, the performance review turns into a historical document, and changing one’s behaviour yesterday is impossible. The more employees can effectively influence their behaviour tomorrow, the higher the quality of their outcomes will be. That is why organizations around the world are shifting from treating feedback as an event to treating it as a process.
Gallup, for example, asserts that feedback has an expiration date: the closer it comes to the event it is about, the more helpful and actionable it is. Employees who receive frequent meaningful feedback are significantly more engaged than those who receive it only once a year.
Sense & Direction – another common mistake involves turning feedback into a one-way street.
The manager delivers the feedback, the employee receives it, neither party is certain whether they understood each other, and the meeting ends.
As it should be obvious, learning doesn’t tend to work this way. Employees have to ask questions, be sure expectations are clear, reflect on their own point of view, and discuss the desired results; otherwise, assumptions, not clarity, will prevail.
Emotion (or lack thereof).
Nobody likes to feel that they have done something wrong. When feedback intended to encourage development is interpreted as evidence of incompetence, recipients’ defenses go up. People are more likely to work on solutions when they are not afraid of being judged by their manager. Ultimately, the purpose of feedback is to help the person grow, not to prove the manager was right.
Moving beyond evaluation and toward development is the first step in feedback, and, ironically, one factor has proven more valuable than anything else: stop thinking about the past and begin planning for the future.
The Science Behind Feedback That Actually Works
If bad feedback does not lead to performance improvement, the immediate thought is, what does?
As shocking as this may be to some readers, the answer is not, in fact, “more feedback.”
What happens in a lot of instances is that companies, when bad feedback doesn’t produce positive results in the organization, try giving more feedback, more feedback check-ins, reviews, or telling people the managers should provide feedback more regularly.
Although this would naturally spring up from good intention, more feedback won’t do any good as the problem isn’t frequency. Bad feedback is still bad feedback, however much you try and disguise it or apply layers of make-up over it. The crux of the problem lies in how we conduct a feedback conversation.
One of the very fascinating results of the studies being carried out into feedback research is that conversations that deal with past activities may result in managers obtaining just the reverse result. The objective of the discussion about a failed outcome seems to be to identify what exactly the problem was, to address why the results of a certain output did not quite match the standards, and to allocate blame.
So, if it is to make us understand the exact reasons behind a specific issue, it is surely easier to avoid its repetition? Well, most of the time it isn’t so.
Research conducted in 2020 found that conversations that focus solely on addressing the output from the previous stage can cause issues between a manager and employee regarding why it is likely not up to the mark. Quite contrary to creating a shared mindset, it becomes an act of making the employees defenseless towards their conduct and a tendency to self-assess the positive sides and look for external explanations for failure, increasing this discrepancy in their minds, which leads them to accept less and be less likely to adopt the feedback given to them.
If we want to have a better grasp of such findings, we need to ask ourselves: how do performance review meetings start most of the time?Do any of these lines sound familiar?
“Let us discuss this past performance and rectify the shortcomings.”
“Why was this project a failure?”
“Explain to me why you were not up to par with your deliverables.”
“What could you have done differently to achieve better results?”
“Can you explain why your performance did not meet expectations?”
“Let’s go over the areas where you fell short and discuss how to improve.”
Even though these are not bad questions, they place the focus of attention on proving oneself, not on learning in context. Once one starts doing that, they can only move their focus from learning towards showing themselves to others; in proving that they are competent or to explain their actions. After all, that’s the way one’s brain is formed.
The interesting thing, though, from this research is that managers do not need to withdraw this kind of feedback completely, but rather should aim to move their focus to discussions of the subject matter & its progress. What mostly determines whether employees accept and intend to change through a feedback process is a forward-focused discussion.
When an employee feels that a feedback discussion about their performance pertains to the future course rather than past failures, they become more receptive (also, this encourages the employee’s intention to implement the changes). So the subtle alteration could have immense significance.
To better illustrate this, ponder upon the following options:
“Your presentation lacked engagement, and the audience became unenthusiastic.“
Vs
“What steps can we take to enhance the presentation to fully capture the attention of the audience right till the end of the presentation?”
Whereas the previous sentence will attempt evaluation, the other one, in contrast, would be development. One is backward-leaning, whereas the other is forward-facing. The one that is toward a bright future focuses the discussion on the future, not only on issues or deficiencies of the past.
The reason many leaders emphasize the need for managers to become coaches is that coaches develop and coach people. Managers, rather than just criticizing a situation, can ask the following questions: “What is the thing that we learned here?“, “What will we try this time round differently?“, “Is there any assistance or resource required to have an impact this time?“, “How can we make our future attempt a successful one?”
Effective Feedback Is About Behaviour, Not Personality
What’s another key element common to all great feedback?
It addresses observable behaviours, not a person’s inner traits.
That may sound obvious enough that you wonder if we need to say it out loud, but the two often get tangled into one in the real world. Here are a few examples:
“You aren’t a great communicator.”
“You’re disorganized.”
“You don’t take ownership.”
The problem is you’ve now just defined who the person is, what their traits are, which are often deeply ingrained or even impossible to alter in real time. Think about trying to tell someone they “aren’t” good at communication; how would you even begin to prove that statement wrong? How can you work on what such a statement wants from you?
Now let’s think about how such assertions could be changed:
“During today’s client meeting, several key questions weren’t addressed before moving to a decision. Next time, I’d like you to pause and invite additional perspectives before wrapping up.”
“The report was submitted two days after the agreed-upon deadline. Let’s take a look at what might have been standing in your way and figure out what we can do differently for the next project.”
Actual change occurs when we use the right words and the right amount of words, to boot. Using both the right words and the proper amount requires going in-depth and pinpointing particulars. When we do that, you’re going to want to pinpoint things that can actually be changed, because behaviour is observable, measurable, replicable, and above all else, changeable.
Personality isn’t what needs improving – performance is. In other words, great feedback doesn’t make judgments about character or intent; instead, it describes what they did, explains why it mattered, and offers suggestions for what to do next & how to achieve it.
No employee should leave a performance discussion feeling unsure if they can even do their job. They should walk away with a clear understanding of exactly what success looks like the next time around. This is the key difference between criticism and coaching, and the key reason why the most effective feedback possesses characteristics that elevate it far beyond simply being “honest.“
Five Characteristics of Effective Feedback
Hopefully by now you’re noticing one thing fairly plainly: feedback isn’t so much about constructive versus damaging feedback. That is nonetheless a relevant difference and an important one to keep in mind, but feedback, what it should be at its core, means facilitating higher conduct from others.
However, if that is the case, we then have to think about another aspect: what makes one bit of feedback more likely to be seen and acted upon as an alternative, rather than met with quiet resentment and forgetfulness?
Though the precise context in every workplace may differ, researchers agree there are five elements more likely to have success.
1. It’s Timely
Feedback is time-sensitive.
The longer a manager waits to engage on a particular topic, the less valuable that conversation becomes. Details and context are lost, and both parties have to recall facts relying on hazy memory. As a coach, would you wait until the end of the season to give one piece of advice on positioning to one player? As a drama teacher, would you wait until a child’s annual recital to mention a few words of advice for playing correctly?
While these examples seem silly, there is a grain of truth there: we don’t learn that way.
Small adjustments in experience improve performance the most effectively when they occur as experience is unfolding. In light of this, some of the best-performing organizations have increasingly embraced the notion of “ongoing” rather than “formal” feedback practices.
They have shifted from the expectation that feedback primarily occurs in quarterly, bi-annual, and annual reviews to encouraging short check-ins on a daily and weekly basis. A five-minute chat between a team leader and report following an interaction with a client, a project kickoff, or the completion of a key milestone often adds far more value than a lengthy review two months later.
To this, we should mention an added benefit of timely feedback: it has an effect beyond improving recall – it impacts momentum too.
2. It’s Specific
One of the quickest ways to make feedback useless is to keep it too vague. Statements such as “You need to work on your communication” or “Be more proactive” may seem like they convey information but are highly unlikely to provide an employee with the specific behaviour they need to adjust.
Specific feedback defines behaviours that are observable and concrete. Instead of saying,”Your communication could use some work,” you can rephrase it in a manner that actually carries realistic improvement capability:
“In today’s client meeting, you did an excellent job answering their specific questions. However, you moved to a decision without asking for other stakeholders’ input, and a few people left the meeting with unanswered questions. In future meetings, be sure to pause after asking a question and wait for other people’s questions before making a final decision.“
Now the employee has a clear understanding of what the problem was, why it was a problem, what success looks like, and how they can achieve it. The guesswork is all but removed.
3. It’s Actionable
Identifying a problem doesn’t mean solving a problem. If it worked like that, snipers would make the best doctors.
Think about a personal trainer telling a new client, “You should get in better shape.” This is little more than a truism. Good trainers tell us what exercises to do, when to practice, how often, and what to track over a period of time. The same applies at work, where great feedback will answer the question ”What next?”
It should be noted that this kind of change might involve experimenting with how you run meetings, plan a presentation, ask questions during client discussions, or break projects down into smaller stages.
4. It’s Psychologically Safe
The trick to good feedback is the existence of psychological safety – a space in which feedback can exist without its recipients feeling mortified, culpable, or punitively chastised; if people are convinced that errors are equivalent to accusation or punishment, they will inevitably be either cautious or deceptive.
The key is a framework that does not reduce standards, nor obviate the necessity of conflict (conflict IS good when one understands how & why). It is a framework that signals the desire to develop through the feedback exchange, and in determining this climate, managers are critical.
By their very nature, curiosity offers a better way to communicate than accusation; questions teach more than assumptions; and listening matters more than lecturing. Furthermore, feedback is more effective when recipients believe the purpose is to develop, not to disgrace, so the intention is to learn when the feedback is intended to help you succeed, not to catch you out making mistakes.
5. It’s Future-Focused
As we’ve iterated a few times in this article, effective feedback enables forward progress. You may remember how past failures often create more than one story about why they happened. These can turn a conversation into an argument that quickly spins into finger-pointing and defensiveness, rather than learning.
A future-focused discussion shifts the entire goal.
Instead of asking: “Why did you do that?”
Ask: “What will you do differently next time?”
Instead of saying: “That strategy failed clearly.”
Ask: “How can we approach the next project to achieve a different result?“
This is a much softer approach that moves the conversation from “who” to “what,” and avoids rewriting the past, shaping the future instead. It sets people up for future success, not failure.
Replace Performance Reviews With Performance Conversations
There’s no greater example of the distinction between providing feedback and fostering improvement than the annual performance review at work.
For decades, companies have used an annual check-in to review performance, highlight gaps, pinpoint areas for improvement, and plan for the coming year. The logic is straightforward: gather observations for an entire year, get together for one meeting to rule them all, deliver feedback, and performance improves.
It feels like magic & sorcery, almost surreal…because it is!
At the time of the meeting, events may already be months old, and employees likely don’t recall the circumstances surrounding it. Managers may bring up very recent issues and ignore the whole year’s data. Both parties struggle to draw insights out of situations that have already passed and cannot be changed. Far too often, however, employees anticipate these conversations and prepare to endure them, rather than get anything valuable out of them.
Now compare that to organizations that weave feedback into their daily work. Here, instead of a single meeting a year, managers coach employees on an ongoing basis:
They praise positive performance as it is happening
Make corrections to minor habits before they become significant issues
Provide employees with opportunities to reflect and learn from their experiences
Embed feedback as an integral part of how the team gets things done, not an event that interrupts it.
Now, this is not to say that organizations should eliminate performance reviews wholesale. They do serve important purposes as documentation of employee achievement, conversation points for career growth, and discussions to align expectations and support administrative decisions.
The review, however, should not be the key mechanism for employee development. Instead, true growth occurs through the many minor interactions between formal performance evaluations. The most effective managers don’t merely review work – they actively contribute to its shape.
Final Thoughts
Feedback Doesn’t Change People ➔ Better Conversations Do
Giving feedback is just the first step in a long series up the stairs of improvement.
The real performance increase comes from the next steps.
Did you tell someone their feedback while the context was still clear?
Did you focus on specific behaviour rather than personality judgment?
Did you give the other person something specific they could do to improve?
Did you create a psychologically safe space for conversation?
Did you help the person understand what success actually looks like for them next time around?
If the answer to any of these questions is no then your feedback will not translate into any lasting growth, rather just another conversation that’s lost from memory by Friday afternoon. The best leadership practices not only evaluate but build capacity in people to step up and try to deliver on something new.
Realistically speaking, most people don’t act because somebody just told them they should. Most people grow because somebody shows them how they could become better, and then supported them with the confidence required to get there.
Once upon a time, businesses used to fail when they didn’t change at all.
They stuck to outdated business models for too long, or they simply ignored technological changes. They got comfortable, slow, sluggish, complacent, and disconnected from what customers and markets really wanted.
Now, a different problem is subtly growing inside companies.
Many organizations are failing for different reasons other than the celerity of their change processes. Increasingly, they are failing because they cannot stop changing. Every quarter, another transformation program; another restructuring; another pivot in strategy; another “new direction“; another system upgrade; another culture reset; another leadership framework; another rebrand of priorities that employees had just begun to understand.
Organizations have become chronically addicted to momentum. Somewhere along the way, many mistook motion for progress. What it leaves us with is a phenomenon experienced by more organizations in quiet, confined cubicles rather than discussed out loud (as it should be): strategic exhaustion.
It does not necessarily look like a dramatic affair from the outside. Companies are still innovative; teams still attend meetings; new projects still get launched; leaders still talk about agility, disruption, reinvention, and transformation. Internally, however, something changes.
Employees emotionally disconnect from “the new strategy“; enthusiasm gives way to cynicism, engagement becomes compliance, and momentum becomes weariness, because perpetual change without some level of stability eventually exhausts human capacity for engagement.
Change, as a baseline, is good when necessary. Change for the sake of change, to chase trends, or simply because “every industry leader is doing it” is NOT good. It is destructive.
The Era of Permanent Transformation
In the modern world of disruption, AI is rapidly shifting industries, changing consumer preferences, and creating a churning geopolitical landscape and pervasive uncertainty; businesses are pressured to move at unprecedented speed.
In response, they have embraced “continuous transformation.” What were previously large, strategic changes have now become “normal operating conditions.”
Between now and a decade ago, the number of significant change initiatives large organizations experienced annually more than doubled. Digital transformation programs overlapped with reorganization efforts. Agile practices are implemented at the same time departments are being merged, and new technology is introduced before the organization has had time to adapt to previous system changes.
Change is no longer the anomaly or the weird wildcard – it is the defining environment.
While adaptability is an essential strategy, few organizations truly consider the psychological and operational cost of perpetual transformation. Our minds naturally crave stability and patterns; forcing our employees to continuously adapt their priorities, workflows, relationships, and expectations takes an incredible amount of cognitive and emotional energy. This is why, eventually, change is no longer an opportunity. It is an exhausting obligation.
The Problem Is Not Change Itself
The reason most people think of their leaders as oblivious to change fatigue is that they mistakenly believe employees generally hate change and transformation.
In truth, people are far more adaptable than their leaders suppose, as long as they are given a clear rationale for the change, consistent leadership support, logical and understandable reasons for the priority, honest communication, and a reasonable amount of time to internalize the changes.
The problem is not change; it is relentless, overlapping, improperly paced change. There is a huge difference between strategic adaptation and strategic restlessness. Strategic adaptation is proactive and directed. Strategic restlessness is reactive and can lead the organization nowhere.
Adaptation leads organizations through natural evolution. Restlessness leads them to a constant state of internal upheaval. Too many organizations today exist in a perpetual state of strategic restlessness. Every new market trend becomes a top priority. Every competitor move precipitates a strategic response. Every new leadership directive leads to an organizational redesign. Every new technology is adopted in a frenzy. Instead of building a steady strategic direction, businesses are creating strategic whiplash and turning employees into survival machines.
Initiative Overload Is Quietly Destroying Execution
Perhaps the most obvious symptom of strategic exhaustion is initiative overload.
We continuously add priorities without removing old ones. Employees are told to increase innovation, improve efficiency, deploy new technology, transform workflows, collaborate, enhance customer experience, reduce costs, leverage AI, develop new capabilities, maintain productivity, and meet aggressive growth targets, all of it, across all departments and teams, all at once.
These objectives may all seem rational when taken individually. However, when all objectives are treated as equally important, they create the greatest demand. Attention, energy, and human cognitive capacity are all finite. Leaders consistently behave as though the workforce can absorb endless strategic demands without penalty.
Every change program requires employees to spend precious mental, emotional, and psychological resources, as well as operational resources. Every new system is a learning exercise. Every reorganization is an adjustment. Every change in workflow is a learning curve. Every strategic turn is a reinvestment of emotional energy.
These cumulative expenses eventually outstrip the capacity for replenishment, leading to a “change deficit,” according to some leadership experts, in which people simply lack the capacity for change, not the capability. When capacity is gone, even minor changes will feel like massive challenges. This explains the confusion when employee teams resist change programs that appear to be great opportunities for business leadership.
Agility When It Turns into Instability
Arguably, no business concept has been trumpeted more enthusiastically in recent years than Agility. The agile organization is meant to adapt rapidly, innovate relentlessly, pivot in microseconds, and respond dynamically to the market.
On the face of it, this makes intuitive sense. However, in many organizations, Agility has evolved into pervasive Instability.
Increasingly, a tendency exists to couch the justification for constant strategic shifts in terms of agility. An organization pivots every six months? Agility. A department constantly restructures? Responsiveness. A project takes flight in one direction and veers wildly off-course? Innovation.
The reality for employees, however, is profoundly different. They experience Confusion. They experience a Diffusion of priorities. They experience incomplete initiatives that are perpetually replaced by a constant stream of subsequent incomplete initiatives. At some point, the organization ceases to appear agile and instead appears directionless.
One of the more pernicious side effects of endless strategic movement is that employees become utterly convinced that nothing is likely to last long enough to matter. It breeds a subtle but extremely corrosive behavioural shift. People no longer commit fully.
Why invest oneself emotionally in a system that might be dismantled in six months?
Why invest one’s energy in yet another transformation when so many transformations that have occurred have never actually been completed?
Slowly, inevitably, employees become adept at waiting out initiatives, not through malice or laziness, but simply because experience has taught them that many organizational changes do not so much represent a clear direction as an intermittent set of waves. This is the point at which cynicism enters into an organization. Once it becomes embedded, transformation becomes increasingly difficult.
The Emotional Cost of Continuous Restructuring
Continuous restructuring has become a hallmark of the modern organization. Departments merge. Teams break up. Hierarchical lines shift. Roles transform. Leadership changes hands.
While these changes may sometimes be essential, frequent restructures carry a high hidden emotional cost. Every organizational change not only affects work processes and workflows but also disrupts individuals’ sense of professional identity and meaning. People invest in familiar structures where they know they can build expertise and develop routines.
Constant restructuring unsettles the ground, and people inevitably start asking:
What is my role?
Who am I accountable to?
What does my team really do?
Is there really any point to long-term planning here?
Will the job I know still exist next year?
This uncertainty generates chronic, low-grade stress and ultimately erodes emotional engagement with an organization.
It is an easy mistake to attribute burnout solely to overwork; however, execution burnout is far more commonly due to instability. When an individual is forced to spend excessive time adapting, recalibrating, reprioritizing, reshuffling, and deciphering priorities that are constantly changing, there is little room for genuine contribution and work.
It is one of the key reasons a perpetually transforming organization is sometimes slower: its employees’ internal energy is entirely used up managing transformation rather than execution.
Attention Fragmentation: The Invisible Productivity Crisis
One of the often-unmentioned side effects of sustained strategic exhaustion is the fragmenting of employees’ attention. Today’s workplaces are already awash in distractions. Endless notifications, endless emails, constant meetings, endless pings from new communication channels, and dashboards-now add in constant organizational and strategic reorientation.
Every new initiative brings with it:
new metrics;
new meetings;
new documentation;
new reporting lines;
new processes;
new communication protocols;
and new expectations.
With constant reorientation, employees can no longer engage in deep, focused work or creative, long-term thinking. The organization itself becomes a kind of “strategically noisy” place, leading to poorer execution.
This often breeds another perverse feedback loop: as performance appears to dip because the organization has lost its capacity to execute, leadership initiates even more change efforts to fix it, making the situation worse because the noise only intensifies. It is not a lack of ideas or capacity that is often the underlying issue; it is the inability of an organization to sustain focus for long enough to give any given idea sufficient attention and resources to make it successful.
Many organizations assume poor performance means a lack of employee motivation or agility. However, the underlying cause is often attention fragmentation; people are too thinly spread to support any initiative effectively. Employees begin the week or the month with one set of priorities and must immediately drop them and switch focus to another because a new strategic initiative has taken urgent priority.
This context-switching is enormously expensive, not just operationally but cognitively. Every time someone has to refocus, the mental momentum of their task is lost. Their decision fatigue rises, and more time is spent trying to figure out what is important than making progress. As a result, organizations that appear highly active externally are, in reality, underperforming and often appear internally chaotic.
Work gets done, but progress halts. Meetings become more frequent, yet alignment plummets. Communication rises in volume, but clarity evaporates.
Many organizations fail to distinguish between activity and progress. Often, the sheer volume of activity a business expends is actually a form of avoidance: instead of confronting difficult strategic questions such as “what truly matters?”, “what should we stop doing?” and “what should we wait for?”, organizations keep adding more and more initiatives simply because it feels like they are getting things done.
However, activity and progress are not synonymous. It is possible for an organization to be extremely busy but to drift strategically in an aimless drain.
Most employees will sense this before leadership does; they will recognize when priorities lack logical coherence and when initiatives unnecessarily duplicate effort, or, worse still, they will come to expect the same sudden about-faces as in the past, with initiatives that were quickly discarded without explanation or acknowledgment.
This breeds that which so few organizations appear to anticipate: emotional skepticism.
Now, this is not necessarily the outright resistance of traditional times, but skepticism, a pervasive belief that any given strategic effort is just temporary and has little bearing on actual organizational direction. This, in turn, causes people to withdraw their discretion fully:
Why invest heart and soul in transformation efforts if experience has taught them that another strategic redirection is only six months away?
Why emotionally tie themselves to a vision that may very well be repackaged in a year’s time?
At that point, an organization begins to lose the free energy that employees devote to supporting their company because they believe in its direction. This loss of “discretionary effort” is something not immediately obvious on any dashboard, but its implications are vast.
Creativity diminishes, pro-activity decreases, collaboration falters, and problem-solving becomes a mechanical transaction. The organization’s innovations appear to be performative rather than genuinely value-adding. Employees no longer focus on long-term thinking because the immediate organizational environment feels inherently short-term.
In the end, a company can breed a culture where mere survival and personal risk management outweigh the notion of positive contribution, and that is the clearest indicator that strategic exhaustion has become more than a temporary problem and has truly permeated its culture.
Final Thoughts
For years, businesses were conditioned to see dangers in the status quo. Those who didn’t adapt were left behind, with the slowest-moving organizations becoming obsolete, and agility anchoring itself as a critical survival skill in business.
Today, however, many organizations have the opposite problem. They are not suffering from a resistance to change, but rather an inability to avoid it. The focus on transformation ceased to be a strategic lever, but became an ongoing way of operating.
Efforts overlap and become unstable before prior ones are truly solidified. Priorities change so quickly that organizations cannot possibly fulfill their commitments. Agility transforms into volatility, and movement is perceived as momentum.
The real cost is not just expressed in missed deadlines or failed projects, but in something more elusive and difficult to track: disengagement.
Employees become despondent that changes will ever stick, and they stop investing fully in transformation efforts. Teams begin to lack a unified purpose, trust erodes, executional focus falters, and work seems to quietly grind to a halt. This does not mean that people cannot adapt to change; quite the contrary, they can struggle with endless change without sufficient direction, stability, logic, or purpose.
Businesses that can sustain success in the future are not necessarily those that adapt the fastest at every single moment. Rather, they are the businesses that understand how to balance adaptation and stability. They will appreciate that attention is limited, that focus has become the new competitive advantage, that execution requires a period of rest, and that sustainable execution cannot occur when we’re perpetually in a state of exhaustion.
The strongest businesses in the future are not those that reinvent themselves ceaselessly. Instead, they recognize the difference between necessary change and stability that should be preserved, and they have a plan to carry on without draining the individuals who must carry the organization forward.
Most organizations love the idea that strategy happens at the top: executives develop it, and employees on the ground execute it. Things somewhere in the middle just work. We wave our hands, and like magic, processes fall into place.
Well, that’s not exactly true. Somewhere in the middle is exactly where most strategies succeed or fail.
Across all industries and studies, one pattern rears its head again and again: well-designed strategy rarely translates into actual output. It isn’t so much that the vision is wrong, per se; it is simply a matter of losing it along the way, of it being diluted or misunderstood.
That gap between intent and output lies where middle managers work. Enabling or neglecting them often dictates whether change will take hold or fade under its own weight.
In this article, we delve into this critical role by drawing on diverse views on change management, strategy execution, and leadership behaviours. Each section looks at this issue from a different angle; all reflect the same truth: middle managers aren’t merely intermediaries-they are the mechanism by which strategy takes shape in organizations.
The Strategic Translation Layer: How Middle Managers Turn Vision into Action
While an organization’s strategy defines what it wishes to achieve, it is middle managers who help transform that vision into something understandable and executable.
They occupy a unique position in organizations: positioned above are executives focused on strategy and priority-setting; below them, employees face the challenges of day-to-day operations. It is this dual orientation that grants them the detail executives often lack: context.
They are attuned to what leadership wants and what employees can realistically achieve.
Their ability to both translate strategy into executable plans and adjust plans to the realities of the work lies in their interpretation and adaptation of information from above and below. It is quite akin to alchemical transformation.
Studies and research consistently cite the translation role as critical. Employees’ understanding and belief in strategy correlates with performance gains, whether measured by revenue, engagement, job satisfaction, or customer experience. However, almost every time, without fail, understanding tends to stem not from the top but from above.
The irony is that strategy often never reaches the middle clearly. Managers often say they are not entirely confident in communicating strategy because they don’t fully understand it themselves. This deficit can ripple outward; the entire organization becomes unclear when the middle is unclear.
In sum, strategy fails not at the design stage, but at the translation stage, and this translation layer usually resides with middle managers.
From Resistance to Alignment: How Change Spreads Organically Inside Organizations
Despite having a strategy at the top, people will rarely fall in line spontaneously. Change within organizations is not a rational, top-down endeavor; rather, it is inherently social and emotional.
Initially, there is likely a division among middle managers. Some champion the new strategy, others defend established procedures. Each response is a common feature of this stage. However, with time, a subtle change occurs.
Initially reluctant middle managers may come to realize that even deeply cherished practices and systems will not persist in their current form without adaptation; innovation may actually be the means of preservation. As this occurs at the individual level, influence begins to be driven by credibility rather than by authority alone.
When a well-respected middle manager adopts a new perspective, it serves as an influential model, drawing followers and shaping the organization’s discourse around the strategy. The transformation begins to gain organic momentum, spreading not through directives, but through personal relationships and evolving consensus.
Eventually, the organization may realize that innovation and tradition are not necessarily antithetical and that alignment can provide the foundation for bridging them.
Organizational change is an emergent phenomenon rather than an announced decision. It evolves in the middle layers of leadership. As a result, organizational change rarely occurs rapidly; however, it is usually the long, slow process within middle management that results in the enduring transformation of an organization’s overall culture.
Why Strategy Fails: The Under-Discussed Problem of Alignment
Executives tend to view strategy execution as a technical problem – a matter of disciplined execution. In reality, it is almost always an alignment issue.
A) Vast studies have consistently shown that many of a strategy’s failed initiatives were not based on flawed ideas but on an inability to ensure consistent implementation. The literature frequently reports strategy implementation failure rates ranging from 50% to 90%, although these estimates are debated and vary across pieces of research.
This metric doesn’t reflect intellect or diligence; it reflects a breakdown in alignment and clarity.
Often, leaders see the strategy as transparent, while employees, and particularly middle managers, experience it as ambiguous or fragmented. This disconnect, a wide chasm between top-level confidence and the reality below, renders the strategy powerless. Instead of directing action, it becomes abstract material in presentation slides.
B) Another factor leading to failure is prioritization: where strategy is unclear, every initiative appears vital. Where all initiatives are vital, no single effort receives the attention it deserves.
It is middle managers who, day in and day out, must navigate this contradiction; they are the individuals making real-time choices about where effort and resources will be directed. They don’t merely execute strategy, but adapt and interpret it.
Indeed, alignment matters far more than planning. No strategy, however ingenious, can survive long-term failure to align the organization. Strategy fails not because of popular opposition, but because of differential experience with it across different parts of an organization.
The Reality of the Middle Manager’s Role: Pressure, Ambiguity, and Overload
It’s a lot more comfortable to use words like “bridge” to describe middle managers than to be comfortable with what this feels like.
Middle managers operate in two directions at once:
They are recipients of directives on strategy, mandates for transformation, and performance targets.
They are also simultaneously dealing with team members’ issues, capacity constraints, execution realities, and their own team’s morale.
That combination creates a structural tension that is difficult to resolve.
A primary factor in this challenge is role ambiguity. How much autonomy middle managers actually possess often becomes unclear.
Are they strictly implementation-focused, or is the implementation adaptable to the reality of the work? How accountable should middle managers be for things beyond their direct control?
Lack of clarity about how much discretion they have inevitably leads to overload. Without clear boundaries, it becomes impossible for middle managers to distinguish between urgent and important, leading to more reactive rather than strategic prioritization of activities.
The capability gap is another widely overlooked issue. Moving from operational leader to translator of strategy requires a fundamentally different skill set. This mental shift is rarely formally part of a middle manager’s promotion and development plan. Middle managers are frequently promoted based on their ability to execute and are expected to become capable strategic communicators and leaders of change immediately.
The result is the expected: stress, fatigue, strain, burnout, and disengagement.
It does not just affect individual middle managers. Lower productivity, scattered priorities, increased staff turnover, and a weaker alignment between middle management and the overall strategy are all byproducts of middle manager overload within an organization.
In other words, the pressure on the middle layer is a systemic challenge, not just for individual managers.
Making Strategy Work: Enabling Middle Managers
Given the importance of the middle manager layer, the question arises: why do organizations underinvest in it?
In most cases, the answer is a combination of inertia and an overemphasis on strategy design, with a laissez-faire approach to execution, assuming it will happen automatically.
However, nothing could be further from the truth.
The most effective method to improve strategy execution isn’t more strategy – it’s stronger enablement for those who translate it into reality.
1) The first crucial step is clarity of role and expectations.
Managers need to understand precisely what will be asked of them, which decisions they own, which must be escalated, and what successful execution looks like in practical terms.
Uncertainty and ambiguity lead to either constant over-escalation or boundary overstepping.
2) Second, capabilities must be developed.
Strategic execution requires much more than the ability to complete tasks. It relies on strong coaching and change management skills, so investment in development in these areas cannot remain just a nice-to-have option if consistent execution is the objective. It is mandatory, if one cares for the success of their business, that is.
3) Third, leadership alignment is critical.
If, on the one hand, middle managers are viewed as merely messengers, they cannot provide valuable feedback to those who designed the strategy, and their engagement in the process will be low.
If, on the other hand, they are valued for the insights they can provide on the ground, they will provide valuable input to the strategic planning process.
4) Fourth, the organization needs feedback loops that work in both directions.
Managers need to effectively communicate execution challenges upwards, while leadership needs to clearly articulate the strategic rationale downwards.
Without an effective two-way feedback structure, a series of distortions emerges, leading each successive level to hear a modified version of the intended strategy.
5) Finally, rewards are important.
Organizations signal to their employees what is valued by reinforcing both operational execution and transformation. Recognition for change leadership rather than just task completion ensures that the challenging work of strategy implementation is integrated into everyday performance.
With these conditions, middle managers transform from overburdened intermediaries into powerful drivers of organizational direction.
Final Thoughts
When reviewing the research and evidence, one theme consistently emerges: the middle management layer is not an auxiliary level in the organization but rather the engine through which strategy actually takes effect.
Middle managers take high-level direction and transform it into tangible actions, process ambiguity into decisions, resist resistance, and disseminate understanding throughout the organization through relationships rather than purely by authority.
Strategy becomes stuck when this layer is not supported. When enabled properly and with a clear understanding, strategy advances with great celerity.
Most successful organizations prioritize investing in the enablement of their middle managers-the people who bring their strategy to life every day-rather than focusing solely on better strategic design.
This is because, in the final analysis, at the end of it all, strategy failure does not occur in the boardroom but in the middle.
Bridging the gap between strategy and execution requires more than intent—it requires the right frameworks and capabilities. Enroll in the Certified Strategy and Business Planning Professional and Practitioner program by The KPI Institute to learn how to align strategy, planning, and performance for meaningful organizational results.
In high-stakes industries like oil and gas, human resources (HR) is more than an administrative function; it’s the engine of operational stability. With over 18 years of corporate experience, Mariham Magdy has built a career navigating the high-pressure demands of this field. As a facilitator for The KPI Institute, she leads the Certified Employee Performance Management Professional, empowering practitioners to bridge the gap between individual output and departmental goals.
A versatile expert, Magdy also delivers the other certifications: Certified KPI Professional, Certified Strategy and Business Planning Professional, Certified Balanced Scorecard Management System Professional, Certified Agile Strategy and Execution Professional, and Certified Strategy and Performance Maturity Assessment Professional. Moreover, she is an award-winning researcher, receiving the Best ROI Article 2018 award from the ROI Institute for her contributions to the field.
In this feature, Magdy shares her approaches to professional development. She explores how leaders thrive in fast-paced environments by treating individual strengths as milestones in a larger narrative. By moving beyond one-size-fits-all briefings, Magdy provides a roadmap for integrating employee well-being into performance discussions to ensure that measurable results never come at the cost of the individual.
Can you describe your current role and how your daily responsibilities relate to HR strategy and performance management? I’m deeply involved in a wide range of HR functions. I’m a strategic HR leader in end-to-end recruitment, ROI-driven talent initiatives, and organization design. By integrating sophisticated selection tools like Competency Based Interview (CBI) and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), I align human capital with business objectives. My expertise spans HR governance, total rewards, and leadership development (GLA 360), ensuring operational compliance and a sustainable competitive advantage for global clients.
Have you worked in fast-paced or high-pressure environments? If so, can you describe your experience? If not, how do you think employee growth should be included in performance discussions without losing focus on operational results?
Yes, I do have extensive experience thriving in demanding settings, particularly within the oil and gas industry, which is known for its dynamic and high-pressure nature. I have over 18 years of corporate experience, starting from building HR departments from scratch to managing all HR functions.
My experience spans from handling HR operations in the oil and gas sector, including offshore personnel coordination. This has required me to respond swiftly and effectively to unexpected challenges, ensuring both operational continuity and support for the team. Furthermore, leading strategic management and planning initiatives has allowed me to align HR practices with business needs in rapidly changing environments, while implementing performance systems and KPIs that have ensured organizational goals are met even under pressure.
Moreover, delivering training to various management levels in fast-paced sectors has allowed me to maintain quality and engagement, even when timelines are tight.
With your experience in HR, consulting, and training, how do you see the connection between individual development and organizational goals?
In today’s dynamic business environment, organizations are constantly seeking ways to align their strategic objectives with the evolving needs and aspirations of their workforce.
I see the connection between individual development and organizational goals as a catalyst for sustainable growth and innovation for both the organization and the individual. When people see clear pathways for advancement and understand how their growth aligns with broader company goals, they are more likely to innovate and go the extra mile.
Our role then as organizations and learning and development (L&D) professionals is to integrate personal development plans with organizational KPIs. Thus, leaders can transform their teams into engines of achievement and resilience.
When setting performance expectations, what approaches help clarify goals while reflecting each employee’s strengths?
Imagine a team meeting at the start of a new quarter. Instead of delivering a one-size-fits-all briefing, the manager gathers everyone and begins with a question: “What does success look like for each of you, and how can your unique talents help us get there?”
As each team member shares their perspective, the manager listens intently, making note of individual strengths and weaving them directly into the team’s targets. By breaking down overarching objectives into personalized, strength-based tasks, everyone feels seen and valued. Over time, these goals become more than mere metrics; they transform into milestones in an ongoing story where each person’s specific abilities move the team forward.
I always love to apply Steve Jobs’ philosophy with my team: “We don’t hire smart people to tell them what to do, we hire smart people to tell us what to do.”
How do you identify the competencies that matter most for employees in different functions, such as training, consulting, or corporate HR?
Identifying the right competencies for employees in diverse functions like training, consulting, and corporate HR starts with understanding both the unique demands of each role and the broader goals of the organization.
The key is to combine data-driven methods—such as analyzing top performers and collecting feedback from stakeholders—with an appreciation for the evolving landscape of each function. We also have to review job requirements, stay attuned to industry trends, and invite input from employees themselves to ensure that competency frameworks remain relevant and empowering across all areas.
How do you align employee behaviors with performance criteria while keeping assessments flexible and practical?
Leaders should start by clearly articulating what successful behaviors look like in the context of specific roles and team objectives. These criteria should be transparent and directly linked to the company’s values and goals, ensuring that everyone understands how their work and behaviors contribute to the big picture.
To keep assessments practical, organizations can incorporate regular check-ins, peer feedback, and self-reflection opportunities. This creates a dynamic feedback loop where employees are empowered to adjust their approach and see how their behaviors drive results. Flexibility then comes from recognizing that excellence may manifest differently across individuals and situations. As such, performance criteria should allow room for creativity and personal strength.
Based on your experience, what role do informal feedback and day-to-day interactions play in helping employees reach their performance goals?
Let’s imagine a typical scenario that we witness: a busy office where, between project deadlines and team meetings, small conversations happen in the hallway or over coffee. These everyday moments of feedback, often spontaneous and genuine, create a culture where improvement feels natural and supportive rather than intimidating. When employees know their efforts are recognized in real time, they’re more likely to adjust behaviors, reinforce positive habits, and stay motivated.
Informal feedback acts as a compass, keeping everyone on course toward their performance goals, one conversation at a time.
How do you balance structured evaluation processes with opportunities for personal growth for employees?
Structured evaluations, such as annual reviews, goal setting, and competency frameworks, provide clarity and consistency in measuring performance. However, these formal processes must be complemented by avenues for personal growth that acknowledge each employee’s unique talents and aspirations. This could be by encouraging employees to pursue stretch assignments or by allowing space for mentorship, skill-building workshops, and self-directed projects that foster creativity and initiative.
I believe that managers can use performance check-ins to discuss both progress on specific targets and areas where the employee wishes to grow. This dual focus helps employees feel valued for their achievements and empowered to shape their own professional journeys.
When planning development initiatives, what factors guide your choices about which skills or behaviors to focus on?
I prioritize skills and behaviors that not only address current performance gaps but also anticipate future challenges, such as technological changes or shifting client expectations. Gathering input from employees and managers helps ensure that our focus areas are relevant and impactful. This creates opportunities for growth that are meaningful and aligned with our business objectives.
How do you measure progress in employee development beyond standard metrics?
I look for signs such as increased initiative, adaptability to new challenges, and a willingness to take on stretch assignments. Qualitative feedback from peers and managers, examples of creative problem-solving, and evidence of willingness to mentor others are strong indicators of development.
Additionally, I consider how employees pursue self-directed learning, seek feedback, and contribute to a positive team culture. These factors help paint a fuller picture of professional growth that metrics alone cannot capture.
From your perspective, what trends in performance management are influencing HR practices in Egypt and the wider region today?
In Egypt and the wider region, performance management is increasingly shifting toward continuous feedback and development-focused conversations rather than relying solely on annual reviews. There is also a growing emphasis on leveraging technology platforms to streamline performance tracking and data-driven decision-making, which makes the process more transparent and accessible for both employees and managers.
Additionally, there is a trend toward integrating employee well-being and engagement metrics into performance discussions, reflecting a more holistic approach to talent management. As companies are increasingly recognizing the importance of aligning individual and team objectives with organizational strategy, they are focusing on building a culture of continuous learning and adaptability to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving market.
How do you manage the balance between meeting immediate targets and developing longer-term skills in your teams?
I encourage team members to identify learning opportunities within their current projects, so that skill-building becomes part of daily work rather than a separate activity. I also support both the achievement of business objectives and the cultivation of future capabilities within the team
When employees have high autonomy, what practical steps help maintain accountability and alignment with performance expectations?
When employees have high autonomy, it’s important to establish clear goals and regularly communicate expectations to ensure accountability and alignment. Setting measurable criteria, along with frequent check-ins or progress reviews, helps maintain focus and provides opportunities for feedback.
Additionally, fostering a culture of transparency—where team members openly share updates and challenges—encourages mutual responsibility and ensures everyone remains aligned with performance standards.
From your experience, how should feedback be structured to support learning and measurable performance outcomes?
By including well-being and engagement measures, organizations can promote continuous learning, adaptability, and a culture of shared responsibility. Effective feedback in high-autonomy teams should be clear, timely, and actionable, focusing on specific behaviors and measurable outcomes while fostering open dialogue and a growth-oriented mindset.
What strategies work best for keeping motivation and engagement when teams face heavy workloads or tight deadlines?
When teams encounter heavy workloads or tight deadlines, maintaining motivation and engagement hinges on several key strategies. It begins with the clear communication of priorities, which helps individuals focus on the most critical tasks and reduces overwhelm. To sustain this focus over time, breaking large projects into manageable milestones and celebrating small wins can sustain momentum and reinforce progress.
Additionally, regular check-ins support sustaining the efforts in order to acknowledge effort, offer support, address challenges, and create a supportive environment that values both results and well-being.
Throughout your career, which leadership practices have had the greatest impact on employee performance in demanding work settings?
We can summarize leadership practices that have the greatest impact on employee performance in three simple steps: setting clear expectations, communicating priorities effectively, and fostering an environment of open dialogue.
Additionally, recognizing and celebrating incremental achievements sustains engagement and reinforces progress even during high-pressure periods. Promoting transparency around workload and inviting team input also empowers employees to co-create solutions, building trust and a sense of shared responsibility.
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Inspired by Mariham Magdy’s perspective on aligning employee growth with organizational performance?
