In this live session Jim Bouchard addresses the common dilemma faced by middle‑level managers who are "stuck in the middle"—serving both their direct reports and a superior whose attitude or actions may be undermining the team. He distinguishes the dual roles of leader (serving the people who follow you) and manager (serving the organization and your boss), explains how these roles can clash, and offers a blend of practical, human‑focused strategies and more formal, policy‑driven advice. The session is interspersed with live‑chat interaction, promotional mentions (podcast, free PDF, book discount), and references to other thought‑leaders. The core content consists of six actionable strategies: (1) check the mirror to see if the boss is truly at fault; (2) diagnose whether the problem is a communication breakdown; (3) remember that bosses are people with their own emotions; (4) focus on what you can control—your own responses and attitude; (5) be honest and communicate upward with courage and compassion; and (6) evaluate whether it’s time to leave for a better cultural fit. Bouchard also reinforces three “clinical” best‑practice steps—document incidents, follow organizational policy and mandatory reporting, and give subordinates a fair hearing—especially in the context of harassment concerns. The talk concludes with a recap, calls to action (download the PDF, subscribe to the blog, follow on Facebook), and an invitation for ongoing audience participation.
Chapters
Welcome to this episode of Sensei Leader Live. This is Jim Bouchard, and I'm here to talk about various aspects of leadership. The human aspects of being a leader is really how we should say it. We've kind of stopped saying we're leadership development anymore. We're about developing the leader, and there is a difference, and we'll get into that in future episodes. Today our topic is, is stuck in the middle, and what we're talking about today is that idea that you may be in middle-level management, you may be even on the front lines, but you've got some folks that you serve as a leader and you've got some folks above you, and when they're muddying the waters, what do you do to rally the troops? What do you do when you rally troops if your, your superior or your boss has a rotten attitude or is coming down on you for some reason or another? The deal is this: first of all, you've got two roles that you're really playing if you've got a middle level of authority in any way, shape, or form. First of all, as a leader, and as a leader your responsibility is to the people who serve— who you serve most directly. These are the people who willingly follow you and trust in your leadership. Then you've got the responsibility of a manager, right? It's a little bit different. There, your responsibility is to the people you serve in your role as a follower. Now sometimes those two roles are in conflict with one another, and that's what we're really here to talk about today. When you've got a boss with a lousy attitude or hair across some private part, these roles can conflict dramatically. That's stressful, it's discouraging. So can you really serve both? Well, I'll put it this way: your willingness and your ability to do just that really is going to be a tremendous asset both to your organization and to you personally and to your career, your growth, your development, and of course your advancement as a leader. So before we get started, as we're waiting for some folks to come on board, I want to do a little bit of housecleaning. First of all, please visit thesensileader.com and check out our podcast, Walking the Walk. I can't tell you how excited I am about that. We've had some tremendous, tremendous guests on the program so far, and next week we've lined up a tremendous guest for you too, Melissa Smith. She's the CEO of That's a company that deals with payment solutions. And I'm very interested to hear about how she transposes her values as a leader in her family, as a mother, and as a spouse to her leadership role as the head of a global company. So that should be really, really exciting. Now before we get started, also download your free PDF. The strategies that I'm going to talk about here in just a couple of minutes are available to you. Hey, Lynn, how you doing? I should mention too, a little sidebar, is Lynn Breon is one of the great thinkers in the leadership space right now too. So make sure, Lynn, make sure you put your information in there and people can find you. I'm not seeing the comment threads, probably something I'm doing wrong, but I'm sure you guys can see it. So make sure that you do that. If Alex is listening, maybe she can run in here and feed me the comments as they come in. Anyway, download your PDF. Just go to thesensaleader.com and look for the blog on the top menu. When you see the post that's talking about today's subject, "Stuck in the Middle," there you'll find the link for the PDF. You can also go directly to bit.ly/sll180104, and I believe I put the the link on the comment thread for you. Hi Ginger, how are you doing? Great to see you. We'll also be putting up replays of all the Sensei Leader Live programs there on those pages on the blog, and we'll probably create a separate page for it as well. And plus, now through January 10th, you can order your copy of The Sensei Leader and save $10 off the COVID price. All you need to do, again, go to Sensei Leader, thesenseileader.com, click on books, the top menu, or search The Sensei Leader on Amazon and you'll find that special price until until January 10th. Okay, let's dig into it. Stuck in the middle. As we talked about at the beginning of the program, I'll recap for folks that are joining. You know, when you've got the problem— this is one of the most, I think, the most discussed, most asked questions in our workshop and one of the most discussed topics is what do you do when you're working hard somewhere in that middle management level or even on the front lines, you've got people who depend on you, trust in your leadership, you're trying to rally the troops, but someone from the mountaintop is coming down and just mucking up the whole works. What do you do? How do you keep the troops motivated? How do you keep your people motivated and satisfied when someone else is really messing things up? And as I said, I'll just recap real quick in case you joined us early, but for folks who are joining now, you've got two roles really, and that's what causes this conflict. As a leader— and we make this dramatic distinction between leader and manager— as a leader, Your primary responsibility is the people you serve most directly, the people who willingly follow you and trust in your leadership. And then you have this role as a manager, and as a manager, your responsibility is the people you serve in your role as a follower. That's how you answer to, if you want to call it, your superiors, the folks that own or run the company. And when you've got a boss or a supervisor with a lousy attitude, making your job difficult, those two roles can really come in conflict with one another. But we've got some strategies to help you out. Now, first of all, I should say that a lot of experts in leadership offer some very clinical advice for dealing with this situation, and that advice is often very, very useful. I cherry-picked a few from, from some of my research. First of all, document the situation and any unpleasant or even inappropriate interactions. And that's critically important these days, particularly when sexual harassment is such a such an issue. If you've got a supervisor or boss that's coming down and they're doing things that are just plain wrong, you've got to make sure you document that early and often. Also, be sure you follow organization policy and adhere to any mandatory— excuse me— mandatory— I'll get my Fiji water here. This is not a commercial endorsement, but I love my Fiji water. Be sure to follow organization policy. And adhere to the mandatory reporting requirements, because if you go astray from that, sometimes that can cause trouble when you have to go through a formal process of grievance. So I think that's really good advice. So make sure you're following that organizational policy, and if you don't know what it is, make sure you check it out and make sure other people know about it. And finally, pay attention to complaints from subordinates and give them a fair hearing. And I hate to use the word subordinate. I'm using that— when I use the word subordinate or employee, or people who work for you. I'm using that in a very clinical sense. I pick my spots for that. Please correct me if you catch me using it inappropriately, because I'd rather say the people you serve. But because today we're talking about serving in two different directions, we have to make that distinction. So make sure that you're, you're really honoring and paying attention to the complaints from people that, that are working for you, below you, or with you. And make sure that, that they get a fair hearing as well as anybody who's— who they accuse of bad behavior. We'll get into that in a little more detail in just a minute. So as usual, you know, I'm going to focus on the human side of the issue rather than the process. You know, I'm appealing to you more as a leader than as a manager. So with that in mind, here are some of the strategies we've come up with in our workshops, and I hope this will help you dealing with this situation. First of all, number one, Ask yourself this question: Is it really the boss's fault? You know, the most effective leader checks the mirror first. Is your boss just being a pain, or are you and your team just not delivering? And that's happened to many of us. I mean, I can recall personal experiences where, you know, I thought the boss was just being a crank, and then come to find out, well, I probably really wasn't doing my job. And probably this person had justification for coming down on us. So make sure you look in the mirror. All the greatest leaders, all the most effective leaders look in the mirror first. Doesn't mean you're doing something wrong, but that's a great place to start. And are you somehow filtering your boss's communication or reading something into it that just isn't there? Because that's a lot of the problem. We're going to dig into that in detail with our second strategy. But understand that, you know, communication is a complex process. I'll share with you, there's some neat information that we have put up on the whole communication loop. And part of that loop is that what we say is not always what the other person hears, if that makes sense. I can see the comments stream, by the way, so if you have questions, comments, or ideas, please chime in. Mary Lynn, glad to see you there. I don't know if it's snowing in Chicago, but we're getting plenty of it here. It looks like Chicago out there. Anyway, when we're talking about that communication stream, there are filters, and there's a lot of these filters that we deal with. We don't even think about them half the time. Some of them are mood, our personal experiences, our like or dislike of the person, other biases that might enter into the picture. Any number of things that can affect the process of what's being said as opposed to what's actually being heard. So we want to make sure that we're understanding that supervisor properly in the intention, and that, that requires sometimes some feedback and clarification, which leads us to the second strategy really. Is it a communication issue more than it is an attitude issue? Not everyone communicates the same way, right? It's just the way it is. So you gotta ask some questions and you gotta offer some constructive feedback if you really wanna make sure that nothing's getting lost in the translation. If there really is an issue, well, that gives you the opportunity for clarification, which is an important part of that communication process, and that really helps you determine whether it's bad attitude on the part of your supervisor Even more important, gives that supervisor the opportunity to respond to that, to identify and address the issue. Which leads us directly to number 3. Number 3, one of my favorites. You know, bosses are people too. Sometimes we forget that. What I mean here is too often we forget that supervisors, folks that we're working for— remember, I'm trying to use those in a clinical sense now— those words in a clinical sense. When we're working for someone in our role as a manager serving the upper part of the chain, you have to remember that supervisors have real feelings, real emotions, and problems just like us, right? Just like anybody else. So it's worth finding out if something's really bothering that supervisor or that upper-level manager executive before you react in a way that you may, you may regret, or even in a way that just puts an end to that communication process that's really going to solve the problem. Something bothering your boss or your supervisor personally, right, in personal life, might be coloring his or her attitude toward you or the people you serve as a leader. So like I said, make sure that just understand that bosses are people too. Let's recap real quick. I want to cover the The things that I'll keep coming back to it. Number 1, is it really the boss's fault? That's the idea of looking in the mirror, making sure that it's not a legitimate performance issue on our end. Is it a communication issue? Remembering that not everybody communicates the same way or communicates very effectively for that matter. So be sure to offer some, you know, some questions or some constructive feedback to help that go along. Number 4, that leads us to number 4. Focus on what you can do. Stop worrying about what you can't control. You may not be able to adjust your boss's attitude. And here's the thing, I mean, the dynamic in the workplace is, is tough enough. We're dealing with human beings. That's the sole focus here at The Sensei Leader. We're dealing with human beings, and human beings are extremely complex organisms. It's just tough to deal with one another. We can't control other people. We can't control their thoughts, their emotions, their reactions. All we can control is ours. So understand this: you serve most, most directly, right, the people who trust in your leadership and depend on your positive mindset and attitude. So now, particularly for people that are in management role, right, those are the folks you should be focused on. You can control your reaction to them. No matter what's going on. That's where we need to pay the most attention. And that helps us or keeps us, I think, from— hey Stephanie, how you doing? Good to see everybody chiming in on you. And please, again, I'm going to say offer your comments, offer your ideas. You might have some strategies that benefit other leaders as well. So we don't want this to be a one-way stream. And somehow, if you heard me earlier— yeah, I can see the comment stream now, so that's good. Anyway, most of all, you got to avoid transposing any sort of bad attitude or negativity on those people who trust in your leadership, trust you as a leader. Those are the folks you're serving most directly. Like I said, I can't control what my boss is doing. I can't control that person's attitude, but I can certainly control my response, and I most certainly can control how I'm presenting myself to the folks who are trusting me and depending on me to have a positive attitude, especially when the proverbial poop is hitting the fan, right? Be honest. Number 5, be honest. Very common issue raised by the upper-level leaders in our workshops and executives is this: it's a frustration that they aren't getting any communication from the front lines. They complain that they can't correct the problem, right, unless they know about it. And that's very true, so it's also our responsibility to keep the communication stream going both ways, right? We have to move some information up the up the chain as well, especially if it's somebody that we respect that's maybe having a bad period. Now, I'm not gonna say it's not always their fault. Of course, sometimes it is, but it's always prudent and it's usually efficient and effective if you just simply state your case clearly. You go to the person who's causing the trouble and say, "Hey, look, you know, you're demoralizing my team. I'm not sure if you're aware of this." But your communications lately have been very, very discouraging, maybe even angry, right? And that's costing us in production. That's causing us not to perform up to the level that you'd like to see. But you have to be honest. You have to be willing. You have to have the courage. You know, we keep coming back to 3 primary characteristics of a leader: courage, compassion, and wisdom. And this really hits both of them, being honest with your supervisor. Especially when there's a bad situation going on. It's both of those. First of all, you have to be courageous to do it. Courage not being the absence of fear, of course. The absence of fear is stupidity. But courage really meaning that you know that needs to be done. You may have some trepidation, but you're going to do it anyway. And the compassion side is this, because it goes back to a point we made earlier, and I'll recap in just a second up to where we are now. That idea that bosses are people too. And that it's showing true human capacity— compassion, true empathy to understand that person may be having a bad time and maybe reaching out to them can solve a lot of the problem. Anyway, let's go— that was— which one did I call that one? Number 5. So let's go back and recap. And I see a lot of folks are joining. Hi, Clark, how you doing? Clark Finney, really impressive leader. Up at Mount St. Joseph's in Waterville and also the chair of the Libertarian Party here in Maine. Really, really tremendous leader. And again, I'll say, I know I keep repeating it, but people are coming in. If you have comments, you have ideas, please put them up in the comment area and I'll make sure that I get, you know, I see those and share them with other people. I know your wisdom is going to be really valuable to others. So number 1, the strategies right now. Number 1, is it really the boss's fault? Check the mirror first, never hurts. Is it a communication issue? Not everybody communicates the same way, not everybody communicates effectively. Let's make sure that all the channels are clear, that we're not filtering. Oh, thanks, Mary Lynn. Yeah, how should we interact with— I'm sorry, my eyes aren't that good. We should all interact with each other regardless of roles. Yes, Mary Lynn Foster, and I should mention George Kruger and Mary Lynn Foster, two of my dearest friends. Headquartered out in Chicago, and they have Big Success, bigsuccess.com, B-I-G-G Success. Tremendous resources for entrepreneurs, and they do a lot of personal coaching for entrepreneurs. If you want to grow your business, these are really good people to be in touch with. So make sure you visit George and Mary Lynn there. So Mary Lynn says, courage, compassion, and wisdom— how we should all interact with each other regardless of roles. Absolutely. And Mary Lynn, you really hit on something. I know we've talked about it before, but the idea that someone embraces the role of a leader at any level, right? At any level from the front lines up. And in fact, if you really want to change your life for the best, that's the way to do it. It's by embracing the role as a leader. Stephanie Aslan chimes in. Stephanie, nice to see you. It's been a long time. It's been way too long. We need to get together and have some lunch or an adult beverage. Sometime soon. She says, open, honest communication is the key, and in person. Yes, the texting mail chains drive me crazy. I couldn't agree with you more, Stephanie. That's one of the greatest obstacles, I think, to open communication, is that sometimes people will depend, they'll rely, right, on the text and on the email. And I have nothing against those platforms. I mean, they're good ways to communicate, good ways to communicate short bits of information, right? Very difficult to express emotion. Very difficult to read mood through those modes of communication. I mean, how many times have you got an email and you thought somebody was terribly angry at you and you only find out, yeah, no, it's not a big deal, right? Or vice versa, someone comes to you, hey, what's up? How come you're upset with me? I wasn't upset. Well, your email sounded as if you were. So those are not the best ways to communicate. Quick recap: Is it really the boss's fault? Is it a communication issue? Bosses are people too. Focus on what you can do. Stop worrying about what you can't control. Be honest. And now let's hit number 6, which is one of the most difficult ones. Is it just time to go? You know, one of my biggest heroes— you could probably see some of his books on the shelf behind me— Stephen Covey. I know a lot of you really enjoy his philosophies as well. And one of the big things that Stephen Covey always shared was the idea that in any relationship, in a business relationship, personal relationship, all interactions have to be win-win. Each party has to gain from the exchange or no deal. That's his out clause. That is the ultimate out clause because sometimes people say, well, I can't if I win-win-win. You're talking about compromise. I hate the concept of compromise. I really do. We shouldn't ask each other to compromise, especially when it comes to values and principles that we hold sacred to us. We shouldn't ask the other person to give something up. There's a better way to do it. And one of those ways is win-win or no deal. If you can't find a resolution or a solution— those are two different concepts. We're going to hit that, in fact, in another episode. If you can't find that resolution or solution, then you need to find a different way, right, where people are going to win, or forget it, walk away. Now that's difficult. It's really difficult, especially if you've worked your way up the ladder to a degree, you're in a position that you've really worked hard for, and all of a sudden, you know, I'm telling you, you should walk away. Well, yeah, there's nothing more destructive to your mindset right, to you and to your career, and most important, to your health, than putting up with somebody who's just a lousy human being above you, right? It's not easy to rise above the bad attitude of a person that's in a position of authority over you, but I got to tell you, I promise you, there's always room at the top. There's always someplace for you to go where you're going to move ahead. It's the middle and the bottom that are terribly crowded. And I really, really believe in that idea. Plenty of room at the top, the middle and the bottom are really crowded. And the middle and the bottom are crowded very often with people who are putting up with a bad situation. Now I'm not saying you have to walk in and throw your resignation on somebody's desk today. I mean, there's always so other considerations and I appreciate that. But you should be looking for the next opportunity. If you're struggling in a situation where your supervisors, the leadership of your organization, the top leadership just has lousy attitudes, you're in the wrong place. You're in the wrong place and it's holding you back. So there really isn't any excuse for you not actively looking for that next opportunity. Stephanie chimed in again, she said, "Open, honest communication is the key." And I can't see the rest of it. Pardon my finger, I'm trying to see if this will Let me go up. No, it isn't, but that's okay. That's a great one. Let's get back to that issue of leaving because I know it's hard. I know it's really hard, and I've had to do it myself. And sometimes it's not just a lousy attitude. Let's talk about that for just a second. Sometimes it's just not a good fit. You know, it's really interesting since I've really been on the road a lot with Sensei Leader, and especially, you know, I learned so much from the workshops. It's kind of a cliché to say when I go into workshops, say, "I'm going to learn more from the participants than they will from me." But believe me, that's the absolute truth in this type of workshop. First of all, our workshops are not a one-way stream of communication. I don't like lectures. So really all I'm doing, my role is to instigate a discussion, and the people that are participating in those workshops have given me so much and shared so much with each other. One of the things we understand, though, we understand this about this— I'm gonna wax academic for just a second— in academic organizational studies, we understand that a lot of what we're talking about are artifacts. Okay, and a perfect example of this is the way people communicate. There are environments, there are cultures where very severe, quick, gruff, abrupt forms of communication are very appropriate. In fact, they're they're desirable. I use the analogy a lot of times that an NFL football locker room may look like a much different cultural environment than your office, right? But the language, the attitudes, the type of communication that happens there may be very appropriate and desirable there, may not be in your office. So I'm very careful now not to judge, right, these artifacts. The key is that you have to ask yourself, what does this mean in my organization? What does it mean to me as a leader? Do I want to cultivate this kind of culture? Or do I want to go a different way? So that brings us back to again, you know, how do you deal with being stuck in the middle? And if it's time to leave, like I said, let's not always look at the villain aspect of it. It may just be time that you got into a culture that isn't a good fit for you. And you need to find one that's a better fit. And also respect that too from the people that you serve, the people who are are answering to you. They may be underperforming just for that reason. It just might not be a good fit. Sure, we try to hire people that are going to be a good fit. We don't always accomplish that. And I know Stephanie is in the employment business. Stephanie, please, I'm so sorry, I forgot the name of your operation. Please put it up there in the comments so people can find you. But I know that you feel the same way about that. You spend a lot of time trying to place people in the right place, and most people that are in HR, any sort of hiring position, do that. But sometimes we miss. Sometimes we miss, and we have to respect that, okay, and let people move along without a lot of angst and a lot of hatred. So let's recap once more. I'm going to try to keep these to about 30 minutes so everybody can do that on the— do your thing on your lunch break. I see I Lost my cool slide up there. That's my fault. My apologies. I just was trying to see what time it was. There we go. Yeah, 12:25. Okay. Hope you don't mind the rustic delivery of the program. We're working in real time, right? Anyway, let's recap. Again, I want to make sure you know that there's a PDF available, bulletin board material. All you need to do is go to the You can go to the SenseiLeader.com site, hit the blog tab at the top menu bar, and you'll find the blog. There's two posts there. One says Sensei Leader Live for today, and all these materials will be there. Or just go to bit.ly/sll180104, and I believe I put that in the comments there for you. And also, before we wrap up, to make sure you understand, yes, we've got $10 off the Sensei Leader book right now. Just go to thesenseileader.com, hit the book tab, or you can go directly to Amazon. That price is good through January 10th. Alright, so you'll get your PDF, and this is what it's going to say, a little bit of explanation on each one. But number 1, is it the boss's fault? Let's look in the mirror first, make sure that we've got all the information we need to resolve the situation and that we understand our role in contributing to it. Number 2, is it a communication issue? Often bad attitude is really a reflection of something missing in the communication stream, either our filters or the other person's attitude that can be colored, right? Bosses are people too, which leads into that one. Bosses are supervisors susceptible to all the emotions, feelings that any of us are, and we need to respect that and understand that sometimes they may be showing anger toward us and it may just be reflective of something else that's going on in their career or their life. Focus on what you can do and not on what you can't control. Once again, I can't control my boss's attitude, but I can certainly control my response, and I can control the way that I'm dealing with the folks that are depending on me for leadership. Number 5: Be honest with your boss. Be honest with everybody, but be honest with your boss. As I said, one of the most, I think, talked about Communication issues that comes up in workshops, especially from top-level executives, is that they're not getting communication from below. Granted, sometimes that's their fault, but it's also up to us. It's our responsibility to bring them issues as they come up, even if it's difficult to do so. They can't correct a problem that they don't know about. And finally, number 6, right? Is it just time to go? Is it time for you to find a new organization where the culture is a better fit? I'm going to recap real quick the 3 kind of clinical pieces of advice I gave you, that some of the research that I found. I think these are useful as well. Document the situation and any unpleasant or inappropriate interactions. Be sure to follow organization policy and adhere to any mandatory reporting requirements. And finally, pay attention to complaints from subordinates and give them a fair hearing. Give both parties a fair hearing. I know there's a lot of discussion now over the sexual harassment issue, and we're seeing a lot of incidences of that where we want to make sure that we pay attention to legitimate complaints, but we also want to make sure that the person who's being accused has a fair chance to defend themselves because sometimes that— the accusations can be unfounded. All right, so that'll wrap up pretty much the first Sensei Live. Episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Again, love to hear your questions, your comments, your ideas for topics. If you're listening on the replay, just add them to the comment stream. We're going to be watching that on an ongoing basis. Best way to stay in touch is subscribe to our blog at thesenseileader.com and be sure to like our Sensei Leader Facebook page. The new page is Jim Bouchard: The Sensei Leader. Just search that on Facebook or you can use the Bitly link bit.ly/— always do the forward slash with Bitly— bit.ly/senseileaderfb.
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