You know him: The frustrated middle manager with a bulging inbox and overbooked calendar, who always misses emails and is late with holiday planning.

The frustration is also found in the boardroom. Why doesn't the expensive middle manager come up with more visions and ideas to develop the organisation? And why don't they make more decisions themselves?

As a director once said to me: "My middle managers ask me all the time about everything. But I don't need questions - I need solutions."

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Three typical reactions

In my experience, this type of frustration often stems from an unclear and unfocused strategy within the organisation.

Research from the Franklin Covey Institute shows that only 49 percent of employees know the goals of their business strategy. And only 15 percent can tell what the goal is, even if they know it.

The same surveys show that only 54 percent of employees know what to do to help the organization achieve its goals. And only 12 percent can tell how success is measured in the organization.

When middle managers don't know the strategy and direction, three things can typically happen:

1. They become apathetic and duck out of the daily routine. The goal becomes protecting their own department.
2. They get burned out. Because they never know when they'll succeed.
3. They do what they find most interesting. Because it certainly makes sense on a daily basis.

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ALSO READ: Director's answer reveals whether alarms should be flashing

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It is the strategy - stupid

The reactions are understandable, but they are also poison for an organisation in the long term.

Of course, a middle manager can be misrecruited, but in the vast majority of cases the root of the problems lies with the top management itself, because the direction and strategy is unclear.

If top management cannot articulate a clear direction and lead by a clear strategy, it becomes difficult for middle managers to deliver.

If, on the other hand, top management has taken the time to develop a clear strategy, with clear objectives that can be translated into concrete, meaningful action plans, then the middle manager really must be miscast for things to go wrong.

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Involvement - the effective way

Top management cannot formulate a successful strategy alone. A strategy that works requires the targeted involvement of the organisation. The word alone can give some top leaders tics. Long workshops, boring slides and expensive consultants.

And yes - if no one knows which direction the company is going, involvement is at best a waste of time.

But if top management itself lays the first tracks. Ask the hard questions. Identifies the right dilemmas. Insists on the use of data. And connect the analysis of the present with the goals for the future - then there is a framework in which middle managers' knowledge can come into play.

It doesn't require two days of full catering at a remote conference centre. If the work is structured and taken in the right steps, top and middle management can get far in a short time - in the nearest meeting room or virtually.

It not only makes for a long-lasting business. It also makes for long-lasting middle managers. No one can ask others to set sail if they don't know the course.

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This column was published on Jyllands-Posten Finance and in Jyllands-Posten, Erhverv on 18 March 2022.