The Middle
It’s been a couple of weeks since I last put pen to paper (or fingers to keys). December was a whirlwind: I finally slammed the door on a few lingering projects, kicked off some exciting new ones, resolved a major long-standing issue, and started prepping for a new course. Of course, I also took time to raise a glass to the year gone by and the new one dawning. This time of year is always about beginnings and endings. But as I reflected on what was over and what was just starting, my mind drifted to what wasn't changing—the things in the middle.
It brought back a conversation I had years ago with a former colleague about middle management. We agreed it’s the most unglamorous, least-recognized spot in an organization. It’s often seen as the mundane holding pattern—the place you just pass through on your way to something better. But we both agreed that the middle is the most vital part of an organization. We contemplated how we could convince people that the middle should be a destination not a place where people get stuck or move through.
It seems like we treat everything that way, don't we? The middle of your career, the middle of a major project, even the middle of a simple conversation—it all feels less significant than the explosive start or the satisfying finish. Our society seems hardwired to dismiss or downplay the middle. But I want to challenge that. I want to spend some time celebrating the middle.
The start and end are vital, no argument there, but they already hog the spotlight in the professional world. I want to shine a light on the middle: the place where the real, often-forgotten work gets done, where initial ideas gain momentum, and where a successful finish is actually forged.
The middle is where I've spent the bulk of my career, where my leadership has had its most profound impact, and where success is truly engineered.First, let's acknowledge the start and end, because without them, there is no middle.
Good leaders are masters of the start. It’s leadership 101. They effortlessly generate groundbreaking ideas, pinpoint critical challenges, and build foundational relationships. They know when and how to ignite action. Similarly, great leaders know when to hit the stop button. They recognize when a project, team, or idea has simply run its course. But if you want to find truly great leaders, look for the people who make the messy, difficult, and unsexy middle work.
The most brutal leadership challenges I've ever faced have been firmly planted in the middle. My ability to execute the "middle work" is where I developed my greatest strengths as a leader. On the surface, many people I've worked with would say my greatest strength is in starting things. I am a natural innovator; I thrive on ideation, I love diagnosing problems, and I enjoy bringing people together. These are genuine preferences and, frankly, they’ve always come easy to me.
But when I look back at my career successes, they always boil down to the grit of the middle. So, here are a few critical leadership lessons I learned from the trenches of the middle that have profoundly impacted me and my teams.
The Middle is the Most Important Part of Any Project
When a team kicks off, the loudest, strongest personalities inevitably shine brightest. When a project starts, the newness and sheer potential excite us the most. The problem? Strong personalities and "newness" fade fast.
Years ago, I helped launch a new student residence hall. I remember the electric excitement as students moved in: new furniture, high-end amenities, and vibrant colors. The energy was unlike anything I had ever seen. After about 72 hours, however, the magic was gone—it was just another residence hall.
This happens with every group and project. The initial rush of energy evaporates almost instantly, and we crash into the middle. Great leaders capture that initial energy and keep some of it in reserve, using it strategically to keep the work in the middle invigorating.
An approach I always used with a new team or project was to move rapidly to action. I could spend endless hours in the ideation phase, but I learned early on that even the smallest, quickest action led to exponentially better long-term outcomes. This didn't mean abandoning the start-up elements, but realizing that quick action in the start-up phase is vital to success in the middle. It smooths the transition and seamlessly connects the energy of the launch to the sustained power needed for the long haul.
I once worked with a supervisor on a strategic initiative. For the first meeting, he had drafted a typical, well-structured agenda. I suggested we weave in a couple of action items that required execution within 24 hours of the meeting. The perplexed look he gave me was priceless. We discussed the 'why,' he tried it, and the group successfully identified a small but valuable action for every member to take immediately. Preparing for the second meeting, his draft agenda was full of immediate action items. It became the group's norm. The leadership lesson: Immediate actions are the fuel line that converts start-up energy into middle norms.
The Middle of a Relationship is the Hardest
The middle is tough—I’d argue it’s harder than both the start and end combined. This is especially true with relationships. Starting and ending a personal relationship is incredibly difficult, and many would argue it’s harder than maintaining one. I agree on a personal level. However, when you look at professional and work relationships, I believe maintenance is far more challenging than starting or ending them. Work environments are inherently transactional, and we tend to treat professional relationships the same way. We start a relationship because of a specific task, and we often let it end when the task is complete. Great leaders reject transactional thinking. Even when the work is purely transactional, they look at every relationship as having the potential to exist beyond the immediate task. Throughout my career, the work I led was cyclical and transactional. Semesters started and ended. New students arrived and left a few years later. Faculty rotated in and out. Through all these cycles of turnover, I deliberately set relationship foundations that could last beyond the work cycle.
I recently started teaching at a new school. In my first week, I ran into former students, former colleagues, and former community partners. None of these interactions were just casual catch-ups. Each person made me feel welcome, supported me in learning and getting oriented, and one interaction, unbeknownst to me, was key to me getting the opportunity in the first place.
As I reflected on how I met these people, I realized every connection began through a professional transaction. But through that transactional work, we built a transformational relationship, relationships that went deeper than the job required. This depth of relationship-building happens exclusively in the middle of the transactional work.
My simple approach? Wrap every in-person transactional conversation in a personal interaction. For example, when a student would come to meet with me, I would start and end the interaction with a brief inquiry about who they are, their interests, or where they are from. Something small that required a personal response. The real key isn't the asking, it's remembering what they said so that the next time, I could pick up from where we left off. The middle work of relationships is about maintaining a constant level of curiosity and connection. For me, this is what kept the middle exciting. That energy around building deeper, more nuanced relationships always overcame the tediousness of the day-to-day work.
The Middle is Where Legacy is Built
When successful projects end, we celebrate the outcomes, recognize the team, and share the results. If a project fails, we hopefully use the ending to diagnose what went wrong in the start and middle. Leaders know that a project's end result is a direct consequence of what happened in the middle. Great leaders use the middle to build legacy.
Legacy isn't just the long-term impact of the final outcome. For great leaders, legacy is about the seen and unseen long-term impacts of how the work was done, not simply the impact of the work itself. For instance, when leading a team, I would openly discuss what else could be achieved, personally, professionally, or organizationally, through the completion of the expected outcomes. This legacy approach wasn't an afterthought or a surprising bonus; it was an intentional course of action while in the middle of the work.
I'd think about how the work could be done differently, who we could engage that we haven't before, or what personal change I needed to make to achieve exceptional results. This focus on transformational legacy made the middle work more challenging, more engaging, and more often than not, resulted in greater success. I realized that high performance is directly tied to this type of legacy. And even when projects didn't hit the desired outcomes, the transformational legacy was still present, creating a foundation for future success.
Leadership is fundamentally about creating the conditions for replicable and sustainable success. These conditions are only generated through the work in the middle:
Through sustaining team energy when the work gets boring, tedious, or delayed.
Through building deep, robust, and well-connected relationships.
Through developing skills, abilities, and processes that extend into the future and across the organization.
The middle isn't exciting or flashy. But it is the crucible where great leaders are forged and where they have their most powerful impact. If you want to build a high-performing team, worry less about the start and the finish, and concentrate on the middle.
