Leadership is not reserved for the C-suite. It’s cultivated in the space between strategy and execution.
At the recent LMA Mid-Atlantic Conference in Washington, D.C., we had the opportunity to explore what it means to lead from the middle, where coordinators and mid-level managers serve as the crucial connective tissue between vision and execution – a level I am becoming increasingly knowledgeable of.
This is where influence is built, culture is shaped and careers are made.
The Power of Symbiotic Influence
The best teams operate symbiotically. Every role benefits from the others.
Success demands cooperation from each party, and when that cooperation flows freely in both directions, something remarkable happens: Projects don’t just get completed – they exceed expectations.
Symbiotic influence softens team dynamics in ways that hierarchy never can. It creates space for honest conversations, mutual support and the kind of trust that turns colleagues into advocates. Whether you’re managing up to senior leadership or managing down to support junior team members, the principles remain the same: anticipate, collaborate and elevate.
When you lead from the middle, you become a translator – converting strategic vision into actionable plans and frontline insights into executive intelligence. You’re both the coach who calls the plays and the captain who rallies the team.
Managing Up: Partnership, Not Politics
Managing up isn’t manipulation. It’s partnership.
The coordinators and mid-level managers who excel understand that their role is to make the entire engine run more smoothly. They don’t wait for direction – they anticipate it. They don’t just identify problems – they bring solutions. They don’t simply execute tasks – they advance initiatives.
Four Principles for Strategic Managing Up:
1. Anticipate Needs Before They’re Voiced: The best partnerships are built on anticipation. Before your boss asks for the quarterly metrics, you’ve already compiled them. Before the pitch deadline creates chaos, you’ve already mapped out the timeline and identified potential bottlenecks. Anticipation requires you to think several steps ahead, understanding not just what your leader needs today, but what they’ll need next week, next month, next quarter.
2. Think Proactively, Especially During High-Pressure Moments: Anyone can execute well when things are calm. The people who become truly indispensable are those who think clearly and act decisively during periods of stress or intense schedules. While others are waiting for direction, you’re already developing solutions. While others are pointing out problems, you’re presenting options. This is when managing up is most important.
3. Push Initiatives That Demand Extensive Foundation Work: The work that matters most is often the work that’s least visible. Managing up means being willing to invest in initiatives that require extensive groundwork, knowing that the foundation you’re building may never earn you public recognition. Senior leaders notice who’s willing to do this work, and they remember.
4. Make Your Boss Look Good (Because Their Success Is Your Success): When you help your leader succeed, you’re not diminishing yourself – you’re multiplying your impact. Making your boss look good means ensuring they have what they need to shine in front of their stakeholders. In a healthy organizational hierarchy, your leader’s wins create opportunities for your advancement.
Managing Down: Creating Safety and Opportunity
If managing up is about partnership, managing down is about cultivation. This is where your leadership becomes visible, where your values become tangible, and where your legacy begins to take shape.
You don’t need a VP title to lead people. You need presence, consistency and the willingness to invest in others even when there’s no immediate return for you.
Four Principles for Meaningful Managing Down:
1. Create Safety: Great leaders at every level create psychological safety. They build environments where team members feel comfortable asking questions, admitting mistakes and taking calculated risks. Safety means your junior colleagues know they can come to you with problems without fear of judgment. It means creating space for honest conversations about workload, career aspirations and challenges.
2. Build Credibility Through Leadership: Your ability to manage down effectively is directly tied to your credibility with partners and senior stakeholders. When you have strong relationships up the chain, you can create opportunities for those below you. You become the person who can get junior team members face time with important stakeholders, advocate for their ideas in rooms they’re not yet invited to and open doors that would otherwise remain closed.
3. Provide Instruction That Stretches Opportunities: Don’t just delegate tasks – develop talent. When you assign work to junior team members, frame it in a way that helps them see the bigger picture. Explain not just what needs to be done but why it matters and how it connects to broader firm strategy. Give them opportunities that stretch their capabilities, then provide the coaching and support they need to succeed.
4. Offer Proper Recognition and Growth Opportunities: Recognition costs nothing but means everything. Celebrate wins publicly. Share credit generously. Make sure that when junior team members contribute to successful projects, their names are attached to that success. But recognition without opportunity rings hollow. Actively create pathways for growth – whether that’s connecting them with mentors, nominating them for high-visibility projects or advocating for their advancement.
Balancing Both: The Tightrope of Middle Leadership
Here’s the hard truth: Managing up and managing down simultaneously is exhausting. You’re constantly toggling between mindsets, switching from strategic partner to supportive mentor and back again, often within the same hour.
There will be days when your boss needs something urgent and your team also needs your attention. There will be moments when you feel torn between advocating for your junior colleagues and delivering what senior leadership demands. This tension is not a sign you’re doing something wrong – it’s proof you’re doing something important.
The key is integration, not balance. Don’t think of managing up and managing down as competing priorities. Think of them as symbiotic responsibilities that strengthen each other. When you manage up effectively, you gain the credibility and access that allows you to manage down more powerfully. When you develop strong talent below you, you create the capacity that allows you to be more strategic in supporting those above you.
Beyond Titles, Beyond Limits
In the legal marketing world, influence doesn’t require a title. It requires trust, clarity and collaboration in both directions.
The coordinators and mid-level managers who embrace this dual responsibility can drive real change. They co-lead across hierarchies. They build effective working relationships with senior stakeholders while fostering a culture of collaborative leadership with their teams. They contribute to firmwide strategy while ensuring that strategy gets executed with excellence.
Your legacy will not be written in your job description. It will be written in two places: the projects and initiatives you helped senior leaders accomplish and the careers of the people you developed along the way.
Think back to the leaders who saw something in you before you saw it in yourself – the ones who gave you room to grow, who trusted you with meaningful work, who made their bosses look good while making you look good too, the ones who managed both up and down with equal excellence.
Then ask yourself: What kind of leader are you becoming?
When anticipation becomes instinct, when partnership replaces politics and when cultivation becomes culture, you don’t just advance your own career. You elevate everyone around you – above and below.
The best middle leaders understand this truth: Supporting others lifts you up, and being lifted up lets you support more people. That’s not a contradiction. That’s the art of leading from the middle.
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