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Management & Leadership vocabulary · Organisational Structure

Middle management

Meaning in management & leadership, with examples

nounCommon term

In management & leadership, middle management means: The managers between senior leadership and front-line staff, such as department heads and regional managers, who turn strategy into daily plans and lead teams.

In Turkish: orta kademe yönetim, orta düzey yöneticiler

How it is used

Often discussed in restructuring, when companies cut layers of middle management to become flatter. One person in this group is a middle manager. The phrase can sound negative when people mean too much bureaucracy.

Example sentences

  1. Middle management is often caught between pressure from the top and complaints from the team.

  2. The company removed one layer of middle management to speed up decisions.

Common collocations

  • layer of middle management
  • middle management role
  • move into middle management
  • cut middle management
  • senior managementThe group of people at the top of an organisation who make its most important decisions, such as the CEO, directors and heads of major departments.
  • hierarchyA system in which the people in an organisation are arranged in levels, with each level having more authority than the one below it.
  • span of controlThe number of people who report directly to one manager. A wide span means many direct reports; a narrow span means only a few.
  • managerA person responsible for a team, department or area of work, who plans the work, organises people and resources, and answers for the results.
  • restructuringA major change to how a company is organised, such as merging departments, removing management layers or reducing staff, usually to cut costs or support a new strategy.

More terms: Organisational Structure

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