**Middle managers are simultaneously the most critical and the most
neglected population in organizational wellness strategy.**
I call them sandwich leaders. They absorb from above — the board's
expectations, leadership's directives, the organizational strategy they
may or may not agree with. They absorb from below — the team's
stress, the frontline's frustration, the human consequences of policies
they were told to implement but didn't design.
They translate corporate direction into human reality. They protect
The biology of being in the middle.
The physiological cost of the sandwich position is documented. Research
on social hierarchy and stress physiology shows that individuals in
intermediate status positions — responsible for outcomes they cannot
fully control, accountable upward and downward simultaneously — show
some of the highest allostatic load measurements. Allostatic load is the
cumulative physiological cost of chronic stress: elevated cortisol,
inflammatory markers, cardiovascular risk factors.
The organizational paradox: the people responsible for translating
strategy into human outcomes are physiologically least positioned to do
**Leadership as a protected function — what your duty to accommodate
means for managers.**
The Alberta Human Rights Act extends duty-to-accommodate protections to
all employees, including managers and executives. Mental disability
resulting from occupational stress — including burnout — does not
have a positional exemption.
When did you last ask your managers — not your frontline, your
managers — 'how are you doing, and what do you need?' Not as a
performance check-in. Not in a group setting. Privately. Genuinely.
Without an agenda. If the answer is 'I don't remember doing that,'
Evidence-based insights on the science of human performance at work. Published every Tuesday. Free, always.
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