Why Middle Managers Are Among the Most Stressed Employees — and How to Support Them

If you’re a middle manager and constantly feel caught in the middle — between leadership demands and team realities — you’re not imagining things.
Many middle managers describe their workday as a continuous act of translation: turning strategic pressure from above into something their team can survive below.

This position is critical — and exhausting.

Middle managers are consistently among the most stressed employees in organizations. Not because they lack resilience or leadership skills, but because their role combines high responsibility with limited control, constant interruptions, and conflicting expectations.

A Gallup report (2022) found that 43% of middle managers feel burned out “often” or “always”, a rate even higher than many frontline workers. Deloitte (2023) describes middle management as the “exhausted layer” of organizations.

Understanding why this happens — and what actually helps — is the first step toward reducing stress at this level, rather than letting it quietly spread through the organization.

Key Takeaways

• Middle managers experience some of the highest levels of chronic work stress — not because they’re failing, but because their role combines responsibility without control, constant role conflict, and overload.
• Meeting overload, shifting priorities, unclear expectations, and emotional labor contribute to constant pressure and reduced recovery.
• Chronic managerial stress disrupts cortisol rhythms, leading to fatigue, poor sleep, low focus, and increased burnout risk.
• Stress in middle management impacts entire organizations, driving turnover, disengagement, and trickle-down stress among teams.
• Recovery strategies include setting boundaries, taking micro-breaks, reframing the role, and negotiating for clarity and resources.
• Organizations can reduce stress structurally by streamlining communication, offering leadership support, recognizing contributions, and balancing workloads.

Why Are Middle Managers So Stressed?

Middle management stress is not just anecdotal. It is rooted in well-known causes of chronic stress: role conflict, lack of control, and work overload (World Health Organization, 2020). Here are the main stressors:

1. The sandwich role

• Pressure from senior leadership to deliver results, with little influence over strategic decisions.
• Responsibility for motivating and supporting teams, even when resources are limited.

One middle manager in an online discussion put it this way:

“Honestly, the toughest part lately has been bridging the gap between leadership expectations and team bandwidth… It feels like I spend half my time translating unrealistic timelines into something workable without burning people out.”

This resonates with Deloitte’s (2023) conclusion that middle managers are bearing an unsustainable load as the “exhausted layer” of organizations.

2. Information and meeting overload

• A Harvard Business Review article (2021) found middle managers spend up to 75% of their time in meetings, leaving little time for deep work or recovery.

As one manager shared:

“Days full of meetings have me feeling burnt out… never having enough time to complete my own tasks.”

This echoes HBR’s data that meeting overload is one of the biggest drains on managers’ productivity and wellbeing.

3. Ambiguity and constant change

• Reorganizations, shifting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and unclear expectations make it difficult to feel in control.
• KPIs are the targets organizations use to measure performance — such as sales growth, customer satisfaction, or employee turnover. For middle managers, these targets can change rapidly when senior leadership adjusts strategy.
• The result is a moving finish line: managers are held accountable for outcomes that may be redefined halfway through a project, creating uncertainty and stress.

4. Role conflict

• Managers must defend unpopular executive decisions while maintaining trust with their teams — often pulling them in opposite directions.

Another middle manager expressed it bluntly:

“I’ve learned to hate politics, infighting, ambiguity, and a lack of support… The worst thing is not being able to give my team clear direction because I’m dependent on senior managers.”

This reflects what McKinsey (2022) also found: many managers feel caught in contradictions that push them to consider leaving their role.

5. Emotional labor

They are expected to support employees emotionally, manage conflicts, and remain positive, while often masking their own doubts or stress.

The Science of Stress in Middle Management

Stress arises when demands exceed the resources available. For middle managers, two drivers are especially relevant:

• Lack of control: One of the strongest predictors of chronic stress and poor health (WHO, 2020). Middle managers are held accountable but lack authority to change big decisions.
• Role conflict: Constantly torn between competing expectations from above and below.

Cortisol and chronic work stress

Chronic stress does not just feel exhausting — it leaves measurable traces in the body. Research shows that prolonged work stress can disrupt the body’s main stress hormone, cortisol.

• Employees with high job strain (high demands and low control) often show elevated cortisol later in the day (Kunz-Ebrecht et al., 2004, Psychoneuroendocrinology).
• A meta-analysis by Miller et al. (2007, Psychological Bulletin) found that chronic stress leads to dysregulated cortisol patterns, including both elevated and blunted responses, depending on stress duration and context.
• These altered rhythms — especially higher evening cortisol or a flattened daily slope — are linked to fatigue, poor recovery, and increased risk of burnout.

For middle managers, who regularly face role conflict and lack of control, this type of dysregulation is especially likely.

The Consequences for Organizations

Stress in middle management is not an isolated issue. It affects the whole company:

• Burnout and turnover: McKinsey (2022) reported that 1 in 3 middle managers is considering leaving their job within a year due to stress and lack of recognition.
• Reduced performance: Overloaded managers spend more time firefighting than leading.
• Trickle-down stress: Stressed managers often pass pressure onto their teams, fueling disengagement and absenteeism.

Ignoring this problem means losing not just managers, but also the motivation of entire teams.

What Middle Managers Can Do to Reduce Stress

Middle managers may not be able to change the system overnight, but there are evidence-based strategies that protect health and performance:

1. Set boundaries
   Protect recovery time by limiting “always-on” availability. Stress research shows that recovery outside work is crucial to prevent chronic strain.
2. Use  micro-breaks
   Short pauses during the day help the brain reset and sustain energy. Even two minutes of deep breathing or a quick walk can reduce tension.
3. Reframe the role
   Instead of seeing themselves only as “pressure absorbers,” managers can reframe their position as connectors and translators — a role that gives meaning and recognition.
4. Negotiate for clarity
   Upward negotiation skills are key: ask senior leadership for clearer priorities, realistic deadlines, and resources. Negotiation is not confrontation; it is aligning expectations.
5. Build peer networks
   Sharing challenges with other middle managers reduces isolation and provides practical coping strategies.

What Organizations Can Do to Support Middle Managers

Supporting middle managers is not only a wellbeing issue; it is a business strategy. Companies can reduce stress through structural changes:

1. Streamline communication
   Reduce redundant reporting and unnecessary meetings. Free up time for real leadership work.
2. Provide leadership training
   Equip managers with skills in delegation, conflict resolution, and resilience. Training should go beyond technical skills to include stress management.
3. Recognize their contribution
   Middle managers often feel invisible between executives and frontline staff. Recognition and appreciation reduce stress and increase motivation.
4. Balance workloads
   Ensure managers are not carrying contradictory priorities or unrealistic targets.
5. Encourage  recovery culture
   A company culture that respects breaks, holidays, and boundaries helps managers model healthy behavior for their teams.

Before You Move On

If you recognized yourself in this article, that’s not a personal shortcoming — it reflects a structural reality of middle management. Many managers are caught between pressure from above and responsibility below, with little space to recover and limited control over priorities. When stress persists in this role, it’s rarely because individuals aren’t resilient enough; it’s because the system demands constant adaptation without providing enough clarity, control, or support. Relief doesn’t start with pushing harder. It starts with seeing clearly what’s driving the stress — and deciding what realistically needs to change.

Talk It Through - Gain Clarity

We offer a free 30-minute conversation to explore:

• what stress looks like in your middle layer
• what’s driving it
• which next steps would actually make a difference

No pressure. No obligation. Just clarity and perspective to start making things better. 

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FAQs

Why are middle managers more stressed than other employees?
 Middle managers experience stress from both directions — pressure from senior leaders to deliver results and responsibility for supporting their teams. This “sandwich position,” combined with heavy workloads and limited control, creates chronic strain that often exceeds what other roles face.

How can middle managers manage their own stress more effectively?
 Small, consistent actions matter. Setting clear boundaries, using micro-breaks to recover during the day, and negotiating realistic priorities with senior leadership all help reduce pressure. Reframing the role from “absorbing stress” to “translating strategy into clarity” also restores a sense of purpose and control.

What should organizations do to reduce stress among middle managers?
 Companies need structural, not cosmetic, solutions. Reducing unnecessary meetings, recognizing managerial contributions, offering leadership-and-resilience training, and clarifying expectations are among the most effective ways to prevent burnout and improve performance at every level.

If this article helped you better understand what’s driving stress in middle management, you’ve already taken the most important first step: gaining clarity.

References

• Gallup (2022). State of the Global Workplace Report.
• Deloitte (2023). Global Human Capital Trends.
• McKinsey & Company (2022). The Great Attrition: Facing the Manager Crisis.
• Harvard Business Review (2021). Research: Managers Spend Too Much Time in Meetings.
• World Health Organization (2020). Occupational Health: Stress at the Workplace.
• Kunz-Ebrecht, S. R., Kirschbaum, C., & Steptoe, A. (2004). Work stress, socioeconomic status and neuroendocrine activation over the working day. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 29(4), 515–524.
• Miller, G. E., Chen, E., & Zhou, E. S. (2007). If it goes up, must it come down? Chronic stress and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenocortical axis in humans. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 25–45.
• Reddit, r/managers (2024). Various user discussions on workload, meetings, and role conflict (anecdotal experiences).