To get the greatest return on your leadership development investment, focus on mid-level leaders. These are the managers, supervisors, and team leaders to whom most employees directly report: the people who most shape employees’ daily work experience.
At their best, mid-level leaders translate strategy into action, culture into daily behavior, and employee participation into results.
Becoming a mid-level leader demands a fundamental shift from achieving results through personal effort to achieving results by empowering and developing others.
Without support, many mid-level leaders never make this identity shift. They remain “doers” rather than “developers” who rely on familiar skills that made them successful individual contributors but can unintentionally undermine ownership and engagement.
Here are five practical steps to build a mid-level leadership system that supports this essential transition.
Leadership development is part of both individual and organizational change. Without visible and sustained sponsorship from senior leaders, participants will see change as optional or insincere. No amount of development can overcome weak sponsorship.
What to do:
Before launching a mid-level leadership development initiative, bring sponsors together to assess current conditions, set clear expectations, make visible commitments, allocate resources, and define how progress will be tracked. Revisit sponsorship regularly to maintain alignment and accountability.
Many organizations promote top technical performers into management roles to retain and reward them. But technical excellence doesn’t equal leadership readiness. The skills for people leadership – coaching, delegation, feedback, and empathy — are different skill sets and require different motivation and development.
What to do:
Encourage open conversations about interest and appetite for people leadership. Create both on-ramps and off-ramps so individuals can explore management without penalty. When someone realizes people leadership isn’t the right fit, celebrate that clarity and invest in technical pathways for advancement instead. This retains top talent and prevents misaligned promotions.
Leadership development sticks when it’s applied in the real moments that shape culture and performance — one-on-ones, project kickoffs, client meetings, morning huddles, and after-action reviews. Too often, these routines are burdened by compliance-driven processes rather than genuine development. For example, replacing onerous and often ineffective once-a-year performance reviews with shorter, more frequent check-ins better integrates development into the rhythms of work.
What to do:
Identify a few critical people processes and define the outcomes each should achieve. Then pinpoint the leadership skills (listening, asking questions, and coaching are a good place to start) needed to make those processes work. Streamline administration so managers can focus on relationships and results, not paperwork.
Mid-level leaders are often pulled apart by the competing demands of senior leaders above and teams below. Over time, they identify more with their direct teams than with peers — weakening cross-functional connection and shared influence.
What to do:
Encourage mid-level leaders to regularly integrate by connecting with peers across functions and levels to build relationships, align efforts, and strengthen the organization’s collective leadership. Peer integration builds fairness, consistency, and shared problem-solving — freeing senior leaders to focus on strategy. Embed integration opportunities into both development programs and as a regular work routine.
As W. Edwards Deming said, “A bad system will beat a good person every time.” Even the strongest leaders struggle when the surrounding system rewards the opposite of what you’re trying to develop.
For example, one professional services firm’s emphasis on billable hours discouraged meaningful coaching conversations. Managers weren’t unwilling to develop their people — they were responding to what the system rewarded.
What to do:
Don’t just correct manager behavior; examine the environmental signals — expectations, metrics, and rewards — that shape it. These system factors are often easier to adjust and have greater impact than trying to “fix” individuals. Aligning the system ensures leadership behaviors can take root and thrive.
Developing mid-level leaders isn’t about another training program — it’s about redesigning the conditions that make leadership possible. With strong sponsorship, thoughtful promotion pathways, streamlined people processes, and intentional peer connection, the middle of your organization becomes a source of strength rather than strain.
When the system supports them, mid-level leaders become the engine of shared ownership, performance, and long-term success.