Betwixt and between is how Kirk Girard describes the problems of being a middle manager. “It can feel like purgatory.” As planning manager at Santa Clara County, a local authority in California, he felt he was searching for purpose, “trying to find my role in the organisation”. It led to considerable “gnashing of teeth”.

不上不下、左右为难就是柯克吉拉德(Kirk Girard)对中层经理面临的问题的形容。“感觉就像在炼狱一样。”作为加州圣克拉拉县(County of Santa Clara)地方政府的一名规划经理，他觉得自己正在寻找目标，“试着找到我在组织内的角色定位”。这使他常常沮丧得“咬牙切齿”。

Behnam Tabrizi, who teaches leadership to mid-level managers including Mr Girard at Stanford University’s Department of Management Science and Engineering, says “middle management” is a depressing title. “It’s perceived as a negative label — as an obstacle and overhead.” Frustrations felt by middle managers may also include a lack of autonomy.

在斯坦福大学(Stanford University)管理科学与工程系向吉拉德等中层经理教授领导力课程的贝南大不里士(Behnam Tabrizi)表示，“中层管理者”是一个令人压抑的头衔。“它被认为是一种负面标签——是障碍和天花板。”中层经理感受到的挫败感或许还包括缺少自主权。

The fictional Bob Slocum in Joseph Heller’s Something Happened embodies middle management misery. Kurt Vonnegut summed up Slocum’s restlessness in his review of the book: “He mourns the missed opportunities of his youth. He is itchy for raises and promotions, even though he despises his company and the jobs he does...He is exhausted. He dreads old age.”

约瑟夫眠勒(Joseph Heller)的《出了毛病》(Something Happened)一书中虚构的人物鲍勃斯洛克姆(Bob Slocum)便体现了中层管理者的悲惨命运。库尔特冯内古特(Kurt Vonnegut)在其对这本书的书评中总结了斯洛克姆的如坐针毡：“他为年轻时错过的机遇感到痛惜。他渴望得到提拔和晋升，但又鄙视自己的公司和他所做的工作……他感到疲惫不堪。他害怕变老。”

Such characterisations are as enduring as the job itself despite the frequent announcement of its impending death. As technology flattens organisations, so middle managers are deemed dispensable. This year, Zappos, the online shoe retailer, said it would eliminate managers. Its founder, Tony Hsieh, said: “We’re trying to [switch] from a normal hierarchical structure to a system... which enables employees to act more like entrepreneurs and self-direct their work instead of reporting to a manager.”

尽管有关这类职位濒临消失的宣称频频出现，但这类典型描述就像该职位本身一样经久不衰。由于技术使组织结构扁平化，中层经理被认为是可有可无的。今年，在线鞋类零售商Zappos表示将取消经理职位。其创始人谢家华(Tony Hsieh)称：“我们正试图从常规的等级结构转向一种体系……使员工更像是企业家一样行动，自己指挥工作，而非向经理汇报。”

From this standpoint, middle managers are cast as superfluous bureaucrats. It is these roles that can be hit by cuts. A report published in 2011 by the King’s Fund, a UK think-tank, highlighted the “sneering” political rhetoric about the National Health Service’s armies of “faceless bureaucrats”. It found that if anything the NHS was under-managed rather than over-managed, disputing the idea of a sagging middle.

从这个角度，中层经理被塑造为多余的官僚。正是这样的角色可能被砍掉。英国智库机构英皇基金(King's Fund)于2011年公布的报告，突出反驳了政治辞令对英国国民卫生服务体系(NHS)“呆板官僚”大军的“嘲笑”。报告发现，实际上NHS是管理不足而不是管理过度，这对认为中层管理者松懈不力的观点提出了质疑。

With such a war against them it is no wonder that middle managers may be depressed, research by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health discovered recently. The report challenged the idea that it is those who are at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder that feel the most miserable and anxious. Rather, those in the middle have to absorb the discontent of those below and above, while feeling frustrated that they do not have power to implement change.

哥伦比亚大学(Columbia University)梅尔曼公共健康学院(Mailman School of Public Health)最近所做的研究发现，面对这样一场针对自己的战争，就难怪中层经理们会觉得压抑了。该报告挑战了一种想法，即处于社会经济阶梯底端的人感觉最痛苦和焦虑。实际上，是那些处于梯子中间位置的人不得不承受来自上层和下层的不满，同时因无力实现改变而备感沮丧。

This follows research published in Harvard Business Review last year that said the most unhappy staff were not those “with poor performance ratings or the ones in over their heads — people with inadequate training, education, or experience for the job”. On the contrary, the most miserable of the 320,000 employees interviewed were those “stuck in the middle of everything”. These tended to be people with a degree, with five to 10 years’ tenure at the company, work as mid-level managers and who receive a good (rather than brilliant or terrible) performance rating.

此前，《哈佛商业评论》(Harvard Business Review)于去年公布的研究表明，最不开心的员工并非那些“绩效评分糟糕或是能力不足的人——培训、教育背景或工作经验不足的人”。相反，在受访的32万名员工中，最悲惨的是那些“困在所有事情中间”的人。这些人往往都有学位，在公司中任职5至10年，身为中层经理，绩效评分为良（不是优也不是差）。

Yet the middle manager title is a catch-all, as Bill Wooldridge, professor and managing director of the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship, University of Massachusetts, notes. “This is a very heterogeneous group. Some have exciting roles.” Most people are actually middle managers if you take that role literally, he says. Though Quy Huy, professor of strategic management at Insead, defines them as “people who are two levels below the CEO and one level above first-line supervisor”.

不过，正如马萨诸塞大学(University of Massachusetts)贝尔蒂奥姆企业中心(Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship)的常务董事比尔伍尔德里奇(Bill Wooldridge)教授所指出的那样，中层经理头衔是一个总称。“这是一个非常多样化的群体。一些人承担着令人兴奋的角色。”他称，如果你从字面上来理解这个角色，大多数人实际上都是中层经理。欧洲工商管理学院(Insead)战略管理教授夸伊许伊(Quy Huy)将他们定义为“比CEO低两级又比一线主管高一级的人”。

Joan Kingsley, organisational psychotherapist and author of The Fear-Free Organisation: Vital Insights from Neuroscience to Transform your Business Culture, says that age may contribute to the gloom of people in mid-management.

组织心理治疗师琼金斯利(Joan Kingsley)称，年龄可能致使中层经理变得阴郁。金斯利著有《没有恐惧的组织：来自神经科学的企业文化变革重要启示》(The Fear-Free Organisation: Vital Insights from Neuroscience to Transform your Business Culture)一书。

“For those who have not achieved their goals, there is likely to be a crisis of confidence; fears that it’s too late; that they have missed the boat. This is not surprising given that organisations value youth, energy and enthusiasm.”

“那些还未达成自己目标的人，很可能会遭遇信心危机；担心为时已晚；担心自己已经错过机会。考虑到如今的企业看重年轻、活力和热情，这并不足为奇。”

She notes the problems with moving up the organisational ladder. “People typically move... on output and delivery to the bottom line. But the higher people climb, the more distanced they become from the work they’ve excelled at.”

她指出了沿组织阶梯向上攀爬的问题。“人们通常……基于产出和对利润的贡献而向上晋升。但是人们爬得越高，离自己擅长的工作就越远。”

The problem is that managers who are identified and promoted for doing a great job are then expected to delegate to other people. The result is often that managers rarely possess the skills and expertise to run a team. “They fear letting their bosses know that they’re in over their heads.” The best strategy may be to retain — or develop — a specialism alongside managerial skills.

问题是，因工作出色而获得认同并得到晋升的经理，之后人们会预期他会将工作委派给其他人。结果往往是经理很少拥有可以负责一个团队所需的技巧和专业知识。“他们担心被老板知道他们力不从心。”最佳策略或许是保留——或发展——一门专长，同时学习管理技巧。

She observes that a manager left to chance and guesswork might use the “quick and dirty route” to manage and motivate people, through the blunt tool of fear. “The trouble is, however, that nothing demotivates someone faster than fear. As fear takes hold of a team or department, people move from thriving to surviving. The manager is left being the object of loathing. And this leaves the manager in a lonely place where he or she is avoided, disliked and not trusted. That’s a depressing place to be.”

她注意到，只能凭运气和瞎蒙的经理或许会利用“快捷却肮脏的手段”、以恐惧这把钝器来管理和激励员工。“然而，麻烦的是没有什么比恐惧更能使人快速失去动力的了。当恐惧主宰一个团队或部门时，人们将从朝气蓬勃转为混日子。经理只能沦为被厌恶的对象。同时，这使经理身处一个被他人回避、讨厌、不信任的孤独之地，令人压抑。”

Job satisfaction, notes Prof Wool , is dependent on the relationships with those you manage. “If they are innovative it’s exciting.”

伍尔德里奇教授指出，工作满意度取决于你与下属的关系。“如果关系是创造性的，就会令人兴奋。”

Gianpiero Petriglieri, associate professor of organisational behaviour at Insead, wrote a riposte in the HBR to Zappos’ efforts to kill the management role. The consequence, he argues, is “people work harder, and control gets more pervasive once it is exercised by everyone rather than by one boss. Issues have to be sorted out rather than delegated up.”

欧洲工商管理学院的组织行为学副教授詹皮埃罗簠靟里利埃里(Gianpiero Petriglieri)在《哈佛商业评论》上写了一篇文章，回击Zappos拟扼杀管理角色的举动。他认为，这样的结果是“人们工作更努力，同时一旦所有人都行使控制权、而非只是老板，控制将变得无处不在。问题必须被解决，而不是分派出去。”

In research published in 2001, Prof Huy identified middle managers as key to organisational change. They often have good entrepreneurial ideas that they are able and willing to realise — if they can get a hearing. Second, they are far better than most senior executives at leveraging informal networks at companies and can sustain the momentum of the organisation. Finally, they ward off inertia or chaos.

在2001年发表的研究中，许伊教授认定中层经理为组织变革的关键。他们往往拥有良好的企业理念并且有能力也愿意去实现这些理念——如果他们的声音能被倾听。第二，他们在利用公司内部非正式网络方面远比大多数高管更加出色，并且能够维持公司的发展势头。最后，他们可以防止惰性和混乱。