Leading from the Middle

2The Mindset for Leading Effectively from the Middle

The mental approach required to be a successful manager from the middle is unlike any other in the field of leadership. With daily exposure to such a wide range of employees, peers, and bosses with so many individual wants, needs, problems, aspirations, and insecurities, and so many hats to be worn (as you saw in Chapter 1), a different mindset is a must. I'm excited to offer you just that, a powerful mindset born from decades of research and experience and discerned from other mental approaches for its consideration of the unique conditions those who lead from the middle must operate in.

The Others‐Oriented Leadership Mindset

The most effective mindset for leading from the middle is what I call the “others‐oriented” leadership mindset, named as such because it takes the focus off of self and places it on understanding and acting on the multitude of perspectives you must consider when interacting up, down, and across your organization. If you want to thrive in leading from the middle, it can't be all about you. It's about helping everyone and everything around you to thrive. It's about the ecosystem, not the ego system.

For this reason, others‐oriented leadership is related to servant leadership; it's even from the same leadership tree. However, it's a different branch with critical differences.

Classical servant leadership invokes an inverted leadership hierarchy; that is, the leader's main function is to serve those below ...