The middle management crunch: Why India’s professional services sector needs to rethink leadership

India’s professional services industry is expanding with great speed driven by modernisation, rising client expectations, setting up of global or regional hubs by multinational companies, and a growing shift towards consulting-based business operations. But amidst this growth, a critical challenge remains largely overlooked: the increasing pressure on middle management.

Organisations often focus on senior leadership and on hiring new professionals while the real dynamics of the workplace unfold in the middle. Namely, middle managers turn organisational priorities into measurable outcomes, absorb a client’s frustration and a team member’s anxiety in the same hour, and are expected to deliver results without losing sight of the people who deliver those results.

The Critical Link Between Strategy and Execution

At the point where strategy and execution intersect, middle management operates in its highest-performing zone. Accountable for turning initiatives into accomplishments, middle managers manage the pressure of delivering on commitments and implementing change.

Their role extends far beyond project management or operational oversight. Senior leaders expect them to drive business performance, improve productivity, lead transformation initiatives, and deliver client outcomes. At the same time, employees expect them to provide direction, career guidance, recognition, support, and clarity. In many ways, managers become the primary lens through which people experience workplace culture.

Balancing the demands of business, talent, and teams: Middle managers are expected to succeed on multiple fronts simultaneously, retain talent in highly competitive labour markets, coach increasingly diverse teams, support the expectations of multi-generational employees, maintain engagement, drive productivity, deliver business targets, and respond to rising client expectations.

Managing change in AI-driven workplace: AI is reshaping how professional services organisations operate. Six in 10 organisations have institutionalised meaningful use of AI but only two in 10 employees have been briefed on its risks and benefits. Managers are often expected to bridge the gap between technology adoption and employee confidence, helping teams adapt while maintaining performance.

The Costs Associated with Middle Managers

Our findings show that discretionary effort, which measures whether employees are willing to go beyond what is required, has declined by three points since 2025. Employees’ participation in decision-making around issues impacting them also remains behind many other workplace factors. When organisations overlook manager experience, they risk weakening the very layer that sustains culture, performance, and growth.

More importantly, the highest attrition risk sits in the middle role, thereby risking the organisation with its critical pool of task go-getters. This creates a ripple effect across the organisation. When managers burn out, disengage, or leave, organisations lose far more than a single employee. They lose a multiplier that affects dozens of employees underneath them.

Building a Leadership System for the Future of Managers

Building an Enabling Ecosystem for Managers: The solution lies in rethinking the managerial playbook. Organisations often respond by offering additional leadership training. Training is important, but it is only one part of the equation. Managers need an ecosystem that enables leadership. Culture is shaped by values, beliefs, behaviours, and experiences. Strengthening managers therefore requires attention to all four dimensions.

Communicating with Clarity with Middle Managers: In environments characterised by constant change, clarity becomes a leadership advantage.

Organisations can start by communicating with greater purpose and clarity, as managers can perform best when priorities are transparent and decision-making frameworks are understood.

Empowering Managers with critical decision-making ability: 

Leaders at Best workplaces empower their managers. Organisations must provide frameworks and guardrails while giving managers the flexibility to respond to their teams' unique needs.

Furthermore, organisations must immediately action on involving managers in decision-making. Organisations often expect managers to champion decisions after they have been made, yet their insights are rarely sought early enough. For managers to act as culture builders and future leaders, they must feel ownership of the decisions they are expected to implement.

To sum up, managers need a robust support network, improved coaching, better-functioning teams, upgraded technology, and opportunities for continuous learning. As the workplace grows more complex, leadership effectiveness increasingly depends on how well organisations prepare managers for success.

Investing in Managers Is Investing in Growth

One encouraging outlook is that more organisations are investing in manager development centred around key leadership behaviours such as Listening, Thanking, Caring, Hiring, Developing, Celebrating, And Inspiring. These behaviours drive a 2x–3x increase in long-term retention intent. Furthermore, what works is the specific, repeated, daily practice of expressing appreciation and demonstrating genuine listening and investment in growth.

These actions are closely related to the managerial concept of Giftwork, which views leadership as a continuous process of performing conscious acts that build relationships and trust at work. In essence, leadership guided by the Giftwork principles recognises that significant employee experience depends on consistent actions, mindful communication, gratitude, and genuine concern demonstrated by leaders in their daily practice.

The future of the workplace culture in service industry will be shaped by organisations that recognise middle managers as the critical link that turns organisational intentions into employees’ real experience.

By investing in middle managers, organisations invest in good business practices, better employee retention, deeper client relationships, and profitable development of business over time.

(The author is CEO, Great Place To Work® India. Views are personal.)