A general manager at a large Indian steel conglomerate recently described an exchange with his boss, the president, that has become painfully familiar.
An operational problem had surfaced. The GM, who also heads a business, examined the issue, worked through the possible solutions and presented what he believed was the most workable recommendation. The president disagreed. The proposal was not right, he said, adding that what the GM considered correct would not necessarily be so.
The GM accepted the possibility. He could be wrong. What he wanted to know was what the president considered the right approach. He was willing to follow it.
The answer was to go back, work on the problem and return with other options. A decision would follow.
The GM reminded his boss that he had already presented what he considered the best solution. The president’s response was that finding the answer was precisely what the GM had been hired to do.
The exchange left him frustrated. Not because his recommendation had been rejected. A senior leader is expected to question proposals and challenge assumptions. His frustration was that the person with the authority to decide appeared unwilling to help arrive at a decision.
In a global consultancy, a senior manager described a different version of the same problem.
Her associate director, one level below the managing director, was rarely available when projects encountered operational difficulties. When an engagement succeeded, the associate director presented the results to senior leadership. When something went wrong, the senior manager found herself explaining the failure.
She was responsible for execution, but increasingly uncertain about how much responsibility the person above her was prepared to share.
These are two accounts from different organisations, and they do not establish how widespread such behaviour is. Yet they illuminate a tension that experienced managers may recognise: the people closest to the work are expected to solve problems and deliver outcomes, while those above them can sometimes exercise authority without becoming equally accountable for the decisions made.
“There is a difference between questioning a decision and helping make one.”
When supervision becomes the entire contribution
There is a legitimate reason organisations have layers of management. Senior leaders are expected to see beyond the immediate problem, challenge the assumptions of those reporting to them and consider risks that may not be apparent at the operational level. A GM may recommend a solution that works for his business but creates difficulties elsewhere in the group. The leader above is expected to bring a broader perspective.
The difficulty begins when questioning becomes the leader’s principal contribution.
A senior manager can identify weaknesses in a proposal, ask for more analysis and request another set of options. Each intervention may be reasonable in isolation. But when the process repeatedly returns to the manager below without clearer priorities, additional information or a decision, scrutiny begins to resemble avoidance.
A leader does not need to know every operational detail or produce a better technical solution. But the role does require judgement about competing priorities, acceptable risks and the trade-offs the organisation is prepared to make. That is what the GM at the steel company was seeking. He was not asking his president to perform his job. He was asking him to exercise the judgement that came with his position.
There is a difference between saying a proposal is inadequate and helping establish what would make it acceptable. The former identifies a problem. The latter moves the organisation towards a decision. For experienced managers, that difference can determine whether the relationship with senior leadership feels like a partnership or a permanent examination.
The credit travels upward. The risk travels down.
“When success belongs to the leader but failure belongs to the manager, accountability has become a one-way street.”
The consultancy example exposes another source of frustration: the unequal distribution of visibility and accountability.
There is nothing inherently improper about an associate director presenting a project delivered by a senior manager. Leadership necessarily involves taking responsibility for work performed through others. The problem arises when that representation becomes detached from participation and accountability.
If the senior leader is visible when the results are favourable but absent when difficult decisions must be made or failures explained, the manager below experiences an uncomfortable imbalance. Success becomes evidence of the senior leader’s effectiveness. Failure becomes a question about the subordinate’s execution.
This is not always deliberate. Organisational reporting structures naturally give senior executives greater visibility, while operational managers are expected to explain the details of what went wrong. But when the same pattern repeats, it can create the perception that authority carries rewards while accountability remains concentrated lower down.
A manager can accept responsibility for a failed decision, particularly when the decision was genuinely theirs. What becomes harder to accept is being held solely responsible for an outcome shaped by unclear direction, delayed approvals or decisions made above. The issue is not whether senior leaders deserve credit. It is whether they are equally willing to stand behind the people whose work produces it.
“Sometimes the organisation appears to be functioning well precisely because capable managers are compensating for the leadership above them.”
The middle manager is no longer a novice
The term middle management can create a misleading impression of employees who are still learning to lead and need close supervision. In large organisations, a general manager or senior manager may have 20 or 25 years of experience. Such professionals can run businesses, manage substantial budgets, negotiate with clients, lead complex teams and make decisions carrying significant financial consequences.
There is a certain irony in this. For years, predictions about flatter structures, automation and artificial intelligence have suggested this layer would shrink or disappear. Middle managers have often been portrayed as expensive intermediaries adding another level of supervision between strategy and execution. Yet the experiences of these two professionals suggest something rather different. Far from merely passing instructions down the hierarchy, they are solving problems, managing operational complexity and keeping the business running.
What these managers need from the next level is not instructions on how to perform their work. They need access to information they do not possess, clarity when organisational priorities conflict, support in securing resources and judgement when several imperfect options remain. Above all, they need decisions that match the authority of the person making them.
When that exchange works, the organisation benefits from both forms of expertise. When it does not, the manager below can feel that the senior leader’s role has been reduced to evaluating work without meaningfully contributing to its resolution. Supervision is necessary. But supervision alone is not the full measure of leadership.
Why the view from above can be different, and why it stays that way
To the managing director or board, an executive may appear decisive, commercially aware and capable of presenting complex business matters clearly. Targets are being met, relationships are managed and problems are communicated in an orderly manner.
To the managers reporting to that executive, the experience may be less reassuring. They encounter delayed decisions, shifting expectations, unanswered questions and occasions when responsibility becomes difficult to locate.
The more uncomfortable question is what happens when this difference becomes apparent to those further up the hierarchy. Does the organisation recognise it as a leadership problem, or does it consider the situation acceptable as long as business results remain satisfactory?
One reason the problem can remain hidden is that the capable manager below is solving it anyway. The business continues to run. Targets are met. From above, the system appears to be working. The additional effort, absorbed uncertainty and frustration may be invisible precisely because the GM is carrying them.
Another explanation lies in how organisations value their senior executives. Performance as measured from the top is not always the same as performance experienced from below. A CXO who manages board relationships smoothly, communicates confidently with the CEO and maintains organisational alignment may be highly valued for those abilities. Reliability, discretion and political judgement have their own currency. Weaknesses in how that executive supports subordinate managers may receive less attention, particularly when operational results remain satisfactory.
In promoter-driven companies, relationships can introduce another dimension. Long tenure and proximity to the promoter may create trust built over years of working together. Such relationships can be valuable to the business, but they may also make it harder to question a senior executive’s leadership practices. The promoter may place considerable weight on loyalty, institutional knowledge or past contributions, even when managers further down the hierarchy have concerns about the executive’s effectiveness.
None of these explanations means that organisations knowingly tolerate poor leadership in every case. Some may genuinely be unaware of the problem. Others may recognise the dissatisfaction but consider it less consequential than the stability, relationships or results the senior executive provides.
Either way, the burden can fall disproportionately on the manager in the middle. The organisation continues to function, while the person absorbing the cost has little influence over how the leader above is assessed.
The cost of losing confidence
The immediate consequence of such relationships is frustration. The more significant consequence may be a gradual withdrawal of commitment.
An experienced manager who repeatedly struggles to obtain decisions may become more cautious about raising difficult questions. Someone who feels unsupported when projects go wrong may begin limiting discretionary effort or avoiding responsibilities that carry personal risk without corresponding authority.
The danger is that the employee does not necessarily leave. A capable manager may remain in position, continue meeting targets and appear professionally engaged while becoming less willing to challenge assumptions or contribute ideas beyond the immediate requirements of the role.
Such changes are difficult to capture through conventional performance metrics. Attrition can be measured once someone resigns. It is much harder to measure the loss of initiative, confidence and constructive disagreement that may precede it. And when business performance eventually suffers, the explanation may be sought in execution rather than in the leadership relationship that shaped it.
The irony is that organisations may continue to depend on the very managers whose confidence they are gradually eroding. Their experience and willingness to solve problems keep operations moving, even as their relationship with senior leadership becomes increasingly transactional.
Authority must come with ownership
A leader who rejects a recommendation should be able to explain the concern, identify the missing considerations or clarify the conditions under which a decision can be made. When alternatives involve competing risks, the leader must eventually help choose between them. And once a decision has been reached, accountability cannot belong exclusively to the person responsible for execution.
The GM at the steel conglomerate was prepared to accept that his recommendation might be wrong. He was asking his president to help determine what should happen instead. The senior manager at the consultancy was prepared to own the operational work. She wanted the accountability for its outcomes to be shared more fairly.
The question is not whether the corner office should have the final say. In most organisations, that is precisely why it exists.
The question is what happens when the authority to decide becomes separated from the willingness to take responsibility.
If the manager below must identify the problem, develop the options, execute the decision and explain the failure, what responsibility is the leader above actually taking?