Six years ago, during a performance review at a retail company in Kenya, I met a regional manager who smiled throughout the strategy presentation, nodded respectfully at every slide, and then pulled me aside during lunch. “Mr Strategy,” he said, “those KPIs they have put on us? They look nice in Excel, but here in Kisumu, they don’t work. We shall just hit what we can and let head office fight with the reports.”
That moment taught me something brutal: strategy doesn’t fail in the boardroom. It dies quietly in the corridors and is killed by middle managers who pretend to believe but privately disengage.
Let’s be clear: If your middle managers don’t believe in the strategy, your strategy is already dead. They don’t need to sabotage it actively. All they have to do is smile, sit through meetings, and do nothing differently.
The real executors are not in the C-suite
In the villages where many of us grew up, it wasn’t the elders who planted food or herded goats. It was the young men and women, the middle layer of society, who made things happen. If they didn’t buy into the season’s planting plan, the entire household starved, no matter how great the head of the household’s ideas were.
Same principle in business. You, the CEO, can paint a brilliant vision. The board can approve a five-year plan. Consultants like me can give you colourful strategy maps and transformation scorecards. But unless your middle managers, branch supervisors, unit heads, and factory shift leaders understand it, believe it, and own it, it won’t matter.
We spent three months realigning the executive team at an insurance company in Uganda around their new customer growth strategy. But nothing changed on the ground. Why? Because the 17 branch managers hadn’t been engaged. They saw the strategy as “Kampala Head Office talk.” When we finally brought them in and unpacked the why and the how, uptake doubled in under 90 days.
Signs your strategy is dying in the middle
a) Middle managers parrot strategy statements but make no behavioural changes.
b) Strategy reviews are attended silently, with little pushback or enthusiasm.
c) Reporting is done, but frontline priorities remain unchanged.
d) Promotions are based on loyalty, not ability to execute strategy.
You can not delegate belief. If they do not buy in, they won’t build it.
"Let’s be clear: If your middle managers don’t believe in the strategy, your strategy is already dead. ”
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From command to commitment: How to fix it
Middle managers don’t want posters. They want clarity. They want to know: What must I do differently? What happens if I succeed or fail? They want to feel trusted, not lectured.
During a turnaround project at a logistics firm in Rwanda, we rebuilt the entire strategy cascade process. Each middle manager owned a strategy pillar. They trained their teams in their own words. And we tied performance reviews directly to the strategy outcomes. Within six months, the culture shifted. Strategy moved from being “head office noise” to “our daily work.”
Leadership challenge of the week
Pick three middle managers randomly. Ask them:
“What part of our strategy are you responsible for executing, and how will you measure success this quarter?” If they hesitate, your strategy hasn’t landed. It’s still floating.
Let me propose to you the Strategy Belief Ladder
Use this 4-step model to ensure strategy moves from PowerPoint to performance
- Understand, Do they know what the strategy says in their context?
- Believe, Do they buy into the reason behind the choices made?
- Own, Can they translate the strategy into local actions?
- Drive, Are they reinforcing it in meetings, appraisals, and feedback loops?
Without belief, there is no ownership. Without ownership, there is no execution.
So the next time your board asks, “How’s strategy implementation going?” Don’t check your dashboards. Check your middle managers’ eyes.
Until next Tuesday.
