Middle managers serve two constituencies simultaneously, making role conflict an occupational hazard.

When upper management bypasses the middle manager, it breaks a chain that organizations depend on to function.

Naming tension openly builds more team trust than pretending everything is fine.

Protecting your team (not just enforcing policy) is what separates good managers from great ones.

My husband and I recently went on vacation to Yellowstone National Park, where we’d booked a group tour. At one point, the guide took a phone call from his boss and stepped away. After the call, the guide was visibly rattled. We could hear his side of the conversation, where he’d expressed that he was in the middle of the tour and would call back when we got to our lunch spot. From then, you could sense the anxiety and dread as he awaited the call-back. While the tour group enjoyed lunch, the guide stepped away. Afterward, I checked in on him. Exasperated, he explained that he had gotten in trouble for something that had happened on a previous tour which “didn’t affect the company at all, and helped give a more positive experience to a guest.” He expressed frustration at having to defend himself to someone in a corporate office across the country who had never even been to Yellowstone. He said he felt like he should be protected by his manager, but his manager had left him out to dry.

What the tour guide experienced was a breakdown of the traditional role of middle-manager. In middle management, your role is to serve two masters: your constituency (the people below you), and the higher-ups (the people you report to). In this case, the manager didn’t protect his person and, instead, there was a direct line of contact from the upper management directly to the boots-on-the-ground without the middle manager buffer.

In a traditional workplace, this may look different. Upper management announces budget cuts, and the........

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