The Extra Mile

11

Pillar Five – Bring Back the Manager

Of all serious academic management literature and research effort, 90% has been expended on two areas: leadership and the development of strategy. Yet both are rendered ineffective if middle management is disengaged.

The cult of ‘flattened organizational structures’ had a major casualty – middle management. In the rush to downsize, organizations stripped out the layer of management which dealt most directly with the workforce and carried out the monitoring function essential to the smooth running of any system. It was a failure of this function, for example, which was ultimately responsible for the collapse of Barings. Nick Leeson was able to evade accountability because no single individual was held ...