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When you’re a manager of managers, you have a big responsibility to support your team of middle managers. Even if you’re not getting the most support as a middle manager yourself, you can still provide the best you can to your team. One way to do this is to give your managers room to vent.
Let’s say you are breaking bad news to your managers, or you need them to convey something that you anticipate is not going to be well received by their team—give them space to react to the news and task. Don’t you appreciate having space and time to complain about stuff that aggravates you? If you can provide a judgement-free zone for your managers, they will feel supported by you.
This doesn’t mean that if you give them room to vent, they won’t know how to be professional when they are around their team. If you trust your team of managers, you can train them to have boundaries. With you, they can complain, and then you guide them to make a plan for how they will act in front of their employees.
Once they have that valuable room to process their feelings and thoughts, they can more carefully prepare for a similar response from their team, or how they may convey a message to avoid unnecessary stress among their team. They’ll need to think through the timing of their message, how it’s delivered, who is present, etc. Help them build this plan. After hearing something hard, it can feel good to have your boss have your back—seeing your human side and then guiding you toward a plan for moving forward.