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4 Main Reasons Middle Managers are Overlooked for Promotion

Aug 01, 2024
Often, middle managers are overlooked for promotions into senior management for a variety of reasons:
  1. Lack of Leadership Skills: Middle managers may excel in their domain expertise but may lack the essential skills needed for senior leadership roles, such as strategic thinking, vision casting, team building, and people management.
  2. Limited Strategic View: Middle managers often focus on executing strategies rather than developing them. A lack of experience or knowledge in strategic planning, sector-wide decision making, or long-term goal setting can be a barrier advancing into higher leadership roles.
  3. Inadequate Skills: Networking and relationship-building skills become increasingly important as one climbs the corporate ladder. Middle managers who do not sufficiently build internal and external connections can be overlooked for promotion.
  4. Resistance to Change: The ability to adapt to change, initiate innovation, and lead teams through transitions is essential for senior leadership roles. Middle managers who demonstrate resistance to change or lack change management skills might not be considered ready for a senior position.
How Executive Coaching Can Address These Reasons Better than an MBA:
  1. Fosters Leadership Skills: Executive coaching explicitly focuses on enhancing leadership attributes such as emotional intelligence, decision-making skills, conflict resolution, and effective communication.
  2. Enhances Strategic Thinking: Executive coaches work intimately with clients to develop their abilities to think strategically and holistically about the organization, helping them to shift mindset from a tactical manager to a strategic leader.
  3. Strengthens Networking Skills: Coaches can help managers understand the importance of networking and provide them with the necessary tools and strategies to effectively create and utilize their networks.
  4. Facilitates Change: Executive coaching offers managers a safe and supportive space to explore new ideas, challenge the status quo and grow their change management skills. Change is addressed directly in the real-life context of their current roles, not as a theoretical concept.
  5. Customized Approach: Unlike an MBA, executive coaching is highly personalized. It allows for the addressing of specific weaknesses or development areas that may be preventing the individual from advancing. Whether it's problem-solving abilities, team management, or understanding of business strategy, targeted coaching can turn these weaknesses into strengths, increasing the manager's chances of being promoted.
By working on these crucial areas, executive coaching prepares managers for senior leadership roles in a targeted, hands-on, and practical way that generalized MBA programs may not offer.
 

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Are you a Mid Level manager with aspirations to grow into higher levels of Management and Leadership. Our Emerging Leaders Coaching Program will get you there faster, less expensive. It would be personalised to you and your needs. Learn more and start today @  https://www.shaneram.com/el