From messengers to meaning makers: 4 ways to transform middle managers into comms superstars

Fast Company

2 days ago

In today's always-on work environment, clear internal communication isn't a nice-to-have—it's a business imperative. Yet many organizations overlook the people most responsible for making it happen. Middle managers sit at the intersection of leadership and the front line, tasked with translating strategy into action. When they're equipped to deliver messages with clarity, context, and confidence, they can turn communication into a powerful driver of alignment, engagement, and trust.
Many companies are finding that today's hybrid environments are not ideal for traditional cascade communication models, in which information flows top-down from leadership to managers to frontline employees. Today's employees are working across multiple time zones and using countless digital communication channels, resulting in more opportunities for message dilution, distortion, and deprioritization.
According to Gallup, 74% of employees feel they're missing out on company news because the company's internal communication is not effective. And the impact of poor communication is costly. An Economist survey found that communication barriers in the workplace can lead to project delays or failures (44%), low morale (31%), missed performance goals (25%), and lost sales (18%).
Caught in the 'middle' of today's challenges are middle managers, who are expected to bridge the communications gap between leadership and frontline workers while also managing both in-office and remote teams. The result? Messaging fatigue, professional burnout, and a perhaps unfair reputation as less-than-stellar communicators. In fact, 47% of internal communications specialists call out poor middle manager communication skills as a main barrier to success. And only 56% of employees say they fully trust their line managers as a source of information.
Even so, middle managers play a crucial role as primary communicators, with 83% of employees saying that communication with their immediate supervisor is important. This represents a significant opportunity to invest in middle managers as effective communicators who drive employee engagement and connect the dots between high-level strategy and day-to-day realities. The key is offering the right support.
4 WAYS TO EMPOWER MIDDLE MANAGERS AS COMMUNICATORS
Here are four ways to empower middle managers to become 'meaning makers' for your organization:
1. Offer Training And Development Opportunities
Communication doesn't come naturally to everyone, but it's a skill that can be developed. Support managers by offering different types of communications training, like workshops on effective messaging, courses on strategic planning, and guidance on how to tailor information to different audiences. By investing in their development, organizations can empower middle managers to be not only better communicators, but better leaders overall.
One training success story is Cleveland Clinic, which faced a growing internal communications gap as it expanded to over 70,000 caregivers. As a solution, the clinic launched communication workshops, training managers to become message drivers, not just administrators. Managers learned skills like active listening, emotional intelligence, and message framing—including how to translate top-level strategy into day-to-day relevance for clinical staff. The model helped lead to a 33% increase in managers' confidence in their comms role and a 15% boost in team engagement.
2. Provide Clear Direction And Helpful Assets
A study by Gallup reveals that only 30% of middle managers strongly agree that they understand what's expected of them at work. To be strong communicators, managers need to understand the full context and goals of communication efforts. Leaders can help by providing managers with messaging briefs and clear talking points for all comms efforts. Consider preparing a toolkit with assets they can leverage for their teams, including emails, social media posts, videos, FAQs, and more.
In the case of Cleveland Clinic, middle managers received manager briefing templates aligned with organizational priorities, allowing messages to be shared consistently and concisely across teams.
3. Equip Them With The Right Tools And Technology
Empowering middle managers with the latest comms technology can pay huge dividends. Many of today's platforms offer analytics dashboards with open/read rates, allowing managers to understand what's resonating with their team and what needs adjustment. There are tools that allow managers to share upwards feedback, push out real-time updates, conduct surveys, and more.
For Unilever, investing in digital enablement paid huge dividends. Their internal communications process was slow, top-down, and overly formal—causing a disconnect between leadership and frontline teams. To solve this, they rolled out 'Unilever Connect,' a mobile-first internal comms platform where managers could share updates and celebrate wins, and employees could react, comment, and post updates. The platform included internal manager forums with best practices on communication techniques, tone, storytelling, and listening strategies—helping managers to find their authentic leadership voice. As a result, employee communications engagement rose 19%, and manager confidence in communicating strategy increased by 37%.
4. Create A Two-Way Feedback Loop
Consider setting up regular check-ins with managers to talk openly about your company's comms efforts. By holding one-on-one meetings you can share context, close communication gaps, catch issues early, and shed light on your project's goals.
You should also encourage managers to seek out feedback from their teams—a task that can be made easier by using modern comms platforms like the one embraced by Unilever. These types of tools make it easier for managers to curate team insights and deliver a 'boots on the ground' perspective to executives.
Middle managers can be more than messengers—they can be meaning makers. With the right tools, training, and support, they can connect the dots between big-picture strategy and day-to-day work, turning communication into a catalyst for clarity, culture, and performance. When you invest in their ability to lead through communication, you're not just supporting them—you're unlocking a critical lever for company-wide success.