The Middle Leader Problem: Caught Between Two Worlds

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that belongs almost exclusively to middle leaders in schools.

It is not the exhaustion of the classroom teacher, who carries the weight of thirty students and the relentless demands of curriculum and assessment. Nor is it the exhaustion of the principal, who carries the weight of the whole school and the accountability that comes with it. It is something different — a structural exhaustion that comes from occupying a position that is, by design, caught between two worlds.

Middle leaders — heads of department, year level coordinators, curriculum leaders, pastoral care coordinators — are expected to lead their teams while simultaneously being led themselves. They are expected to implement decisions they did not make, communicate expectations they were not consulted on, and manage people who are often their peers. They are accountable upward and responsible downward, and the tension between those two directions is rarely acknowledged, let alone addressed.

This article is for middle leaders who recognise that tension — and for the senior leaders who want to understand why it matters.

The research on middle leadership in schools is consistent and, in many ways, sobering.

Studies from the UK, Australia, and North America converge on a set of findings that have remained largely stable for two decades. Middle leaders report high levels of role ambiguity — they are often unclear about the boundaries of their authority and the scope of their responsibility. They report limited access to professional development that is specific to their role. And they report feeling inadequately prepared for the interpersonal and relational demands of leadership, having been promoted primarily on the basis of their classroom performance rather than their leadership capability.

A 2019 study by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) found that middle leaders consistently identified the gap between their formal authority and their actual responsibility as one of the most significant sources of stress in their role. They were expected to lead — but without the positional power, the decision-making authority, or the professional preparation that leadership requires.

This is not a new problem. But it is a persistent one.

To understand why middle leadership is so difficult, it helps to think about the structural position middle leaders occupy.

Senior leaders set direction. They make decisions about curriculum, staffing, culture, and strategy. They hold the formal authority of the institution. Middle leaders are expected to translate that direction into practice — to take the decisions made at the top and make them real at the team level.

But translation is not a passive act. It requires interpretation, negotiation, and judgment. A middle leader who receives a directive from senior leadership must make sense of it, communicate it to their team in a way that is credible and contextually appropriate, manage the resistance or confusion that may follow, and then report back on progress — all while continuing to teach, assess, and manage their own classroom responsibilities.

This is a significant cognitive and relational load. And it is made heavier by the fact that middle leaders often lack the information they need to do it well. They are not always present when decisions are made. They are not always consulted before directions are set. They are frequently the last to know and the first to be held accountable.

One of the most underexamined aspects of middle leadership is what researchers have called the loyalty bind.

Middle leaders are expected to be loyal to the institution — to implement policy, support senior leadership decisions, and model institutional values. But they are also expected to be loyal to their teams — to advocate for their staff, protect their wellbeing, and represent their interests to senior leadership.

When those two loyalties align, middle leadership is manageable. When they conflict — and they frequently do — middle leaders are placed in an impossible position. They must either implement a decision they believe is wrong for their team, or push back against senior leadership in a way that risks their standing and their relationships.

Most middle leaders resolve this bind by defaulting to institutional loyalty. They implement the decision, absorb the team's frustration, and carry the relational cost privately. Over time, this pattern erodes trust — both the team's trust in the middle leader, and the middle leader's trust in themselves.

The research is also clear on a second structural problem: middle leaders are rarely prepared for the role before they step into it.

In most schools, middle leadership positions are filled by teachers who have demonstrated excellence in the classroom. This is a reasonable starting point — credibility with peers matters, and subject expertise is genuinely important. But classroom excellence does not automatically translate into leadership capability. The skills required to manage a team, navigate conflict, give difficult feedback, facilitate professional learning, and influence without authority are distinct from the skills required to teach well.

Yet in most schools, the preparation for middle leadership consists of little more than a handover conversation with the outgoing leader and, if the school is well-resourced, attendance at a one-day leadership workshop.

This is not sufficient. And the evidence shows it.

A 2021 review of middle leadership development programs in Australian schools found that the most effective programs shared three characteristics: they were sustained over time rather than delivered as a single event; they were contextually grounded in the specific challenges of the school rather than generic; and they included structured opportunities for reflection and coaching alongside skill development.

Programs that lacked these features — the majority of programs reviewed — produced little measurable change in leadership practice.

Based on the research and on three decades of working with leaders in schools, I would argue that middle leaders need three things that most schools do not currently provide.

First, they need clarity about their role. Not a job description — those exist in abundance and are rarely useful. They need a genuine conversation with senior leadership about the boundaries of their authority, the scope of their responsibility, and the expectations that will be used to evaluate their performance. This conversation needs to happen before they step into the role, and it needs to be revisited regularly as the context changes.

Second, they need structured support for the relational demands of leadership. The hardest parts of middle leadership are not the administrative tasks — they are the conversations. Giving feedback to a colleague who is also a friend. Managing a team member whose performance is declining. Navigating a conflict between two staff members who both report to you. These situations require skill, and skill requires development. Middle leaders need access to coaching, mentoring, and structured professional learning that is specific to these relational challenges.

Third, they need to be included in the decisions that affect their teams. This does not mean that middle leaders should have veto power over senior leadership decisions. It means that senior leaders should create genuine opportunities for middle leaders to contribute their perspective before decisions are made — not just to be informed after the fact. When middle leaders are consulted, they are better positioned to communicate decisions credibly to their teams. When they are not, they are placed in the impossible position of defending decisions they had no part in making.

It would be easy to read this article as a critique of senior leadership. That is not the intention.

Most principals and deputy principals are acutely aware of the pressure their middle leaders are under. Many of them were middle leaders themselves, and they carry the memory of that structural tension. The problem is not a lack of awareness — it is a lack of structural solutions.

Senior leaders are also under pressure. They are managing whole-school accountability, community expectations, staffing challenges, and the relentless demands of a system that is itself under strain. In that context, investing time and resources in middle leadership development can feel like a luxury rather than a priority.

But the evidence suggests it is neither. Schools with strong middle leadership — leaders who are clear about their role, capable in their practice, and genuinely supported by senior leadership — perform better on almost every measure that matters: staff retention, student outcomes, professional culture, and organisational resilience.

Middle leadership is not a peripheral concern. It is a structural lever. And right now, in most schools, it is being left largely unpulled.

For senior leaders who want to address this, the starting point is not a program or a policy. It is a conversation.

Sit down with your middle leaders — individually, not as a group — and ask them three questions. What is the hardest part of your role right now? Where do you feel most unsupported? What would make the biggest difference to your effectiveness?

The answers will tell you more than any survey or performance review. And the act of asking — genuinely asking, and genuinely listening — will itself begin to shift the dynamic.

Middle leaders who feel seen and supported lead differently. They communicate more confidently, manage conflict more effectively, and advocate more credibly for their teams. The investment is modest. The return is significant.

If the challenges described in this article resonate with what you are seeing in your school, Thinking Connections offers two programs designed specifically for middle leaders at different stages of their career.

Leading from the Middle is designed for educators stepping into their first leadership role, or those in the early stages of middle leadership. It begins with the Thinking Assessment Tool and Profile, surfacing the thinking patterns that will either support or limit their effectiveness as leaders.

Renewing the Middle is designed for experienced middle leaders who are ready to examine their thinking with fresh eyes — leaders who have been in their role for four or more years and are ready to lead at a higher level.

Both programs are delivered in-school and tailored to the specific context of your leadership team. If you would like to explore whether either program is the right fit for your school, get in touch.

Anthony Haskell is the founder of Thinking Connections, a consulting and coaching practice supporting school leaders and early career teachers across Australia. His work is grounded in metacognitive theory and three decades of experience in schools.