Leadership today is defined less by clear choices and more by constant trade offs. Leaders are expected to deliver results and take care of people, move fast and stay thoughtful, enforce standards and remain empathetic.
As master certified executive coach Madeleine Homan Blanchard identifies, this tension isn’t a sign of failure; it’s the work of leadership.
In preparation for a webinar she will be conducting on February 18, Blanchard shared with me how competing priorities show up differently for frontline leaders, mid level managers, and senior executives—and what effective leadership looks like at each stage.
Her insights offer a clear roadmap for every leader who is navigating their way through a continuously shifting work environment.
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For Frontline Leaders: Balancing Results and Relationships Every Day
The core tension: Getting the work done while respecting the people doing the work
Frontline leadership is where two realities collide: the reality of achieving results and the reality of the way others behave and react.
“It can be a shocking shift for folks who have previously been responsible only for themselves to suddenly find themselves in management," says Blanchard. "Now they are responsible for not only execution, pace, and quality, but also shaping the lived experience of work for their teams.”
As Blanchard often reminds new managers, the first job of a manager is making sure the work gets done while maintaining the well-being of the people doing it. That tension, she explains, is not a problem to solve; it is the work.
“Most frontline leaders are promoted into management because they were excellent individual contributors. They know how to get things done, they work hard, and they carry a strong sense of responsibility. What almost no one tells them is that the very strengths that earned them the promotion can quietly undermine their success as leaders.”
One of the most common traps Blanchard sees at this level is what she calls the “be like me” syndrome.
“New managers instinctively manage others the way they like to be managed, so they assume the same pace, motivations, tolerance for pressure, and need for direction. When that doesn’t work, frustration builds on both sides. Performance suffers, relationships strain, and leaders begin to question themselves.”
Frontline leaders successfully shift when they realize leadership is not about imposing their personal standards; it’s about creating clarity and support for different people with different needs. That realization often shows up in small, practical choices:
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- Being crystal clear about priorities instead of assuming they are obvious
- Giving direction without apologizing
- Offering support without rescuing
- Adjusting leadership style based on the competence and confidence of each direct report instead of defaulting to their own personal style preference
Blanchard is particularly adamant in addressing one fear that holds new leaders back: the fear of being perceived as a micromanager. Clear expectations, she argues, are not micromanagement; they are a completely appropriate leadership style when people need specific direction. Ambiguity creates stress, wastes energy, and erodes trust much faster than honest direction ever will. Don’t be afraid to provide clear, specific direction when people are new to a task.
Learning to offer support in appropriate amounts is a critical skill at this stage. This is also where coaching skills become essential. Coaching conversations help frontline leaders slow themselves down, listen to learn, ask better questions, and express confidence even while holding people accountable. Over time this reduces rework, disengagement, and burnout for both the leader and the team.
“For frontline leaders, balancing results and relationships is not a one-time decision,” says Blanchard. “It’s the moment-to-moment practice of deciding what your people need from you right now.”
Blanchard’s advice for frontline leaders: Be kind. Be clear. Be consistent. Direction without support feels harsh; support without direction feels like abandonment. Strong frontline leaders learn to offer both. Remember, it’s no longer about you; it is about the success of your people.
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For Mid-Level Managers: Holding the Middle Without Losing Yourself
The core tension: Advocating up and down while absorbing pressure from every direction
If frontline leadership is demanding, midlevel leadership is relentless. Blanchard puts it plainly: “Being a mid-level manager is tough. These leaders sit squarely in the middle. They are responsible for guiding others in support of a vision they did not create while managing expectations from above, needs from below, and their own finite capacity in between.”
Mid-level managers are trusted, capable, and quietly overwhelmed. They are squeezed by senior leaders pushing for results and by employees looking for protection, clarity, and reassurance. It is no surprise that research consistently shows that burnout runs high at this level.
“The job asks for everything while offering limited control. This squeeze can feel very uncomfortable for managers who aren’t prepared to balance the needs of their people and the needs of the organization.”
The challenge, Blanchard says, is for managers to care deeply about their people without over-identifying with them.
“This is where you hear versions of ‘Don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger,’ which is a sign of a manager who needs to identify with their team and be liked. This might feel good for a while, but eventually limits career growth. It can even cause a mid-level manager to abdicate their responsibility to the organization.”
Empathy is essential, but when it turns into avoiding accountability or shielding teams from reality, credibility erodes. Blanchard warns that senior leaders can tell when managers care more about being liked than about delivering results. One of the defining challenges of leadership in the middle is to effectively balance accountability with the well-being of the team.
Another defining challenge is pace and workload. Most mid-level managers know, long before senior leadership acknowledges it, when the workload is becoming unsustainable. Blanchard encourages leaders to stop carrying this burden silently.
“One of the most dangerous and least discussed realities of being a mid-level manager is what chronic stress does to your brain. Our prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for judgment, empathy, strategic thinking, and self-regulation—simply does not function well under sustained pressure.
“When you are constantly overloaded, interrupted, and bracing for the next demand from above or below, your brain shifts into threat mode. That’s when leaders become more reactive, more rigid, more impatient, and more likely to default to old habits that no longer serve them. This isn’t a character flaw; it’s biology.”
And it explains why so many capable mid-level managers feel like they’re losing access to their best thinking.
“Self-regulation, self-care, and seeking support are not luxuries at this level; they are leadership responsibilities. Leaders who neglect themselves inevitably pass stress downstream.”
Blanchard’s advice for mid level managers: Build nurturing relationships within the organization, manage expectations with courage, take extraordinarily good care of yourself, and remember that the middle matters more than anyone realizes.
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For Senior Leaders: Letting Go of Control Without Losing the Plot
The core tensions: Results vs. humanity; authority vs. influence; certainty vs. curiosity
By the time leaders reach a senior role, many expect the work to become clearer. Instead, as Blanchard often observes, it becomes lonelier, heavier, and far more ambiguous. The problems are no longer technical—they are strategic, human, political, emotional, and systemic. And the cost of getting the solutions wrong is high.
“Senior leaders face a paradox few anticipate: the higher they go, the less direct control they actually have. They are accountable for outcomes they cannot personally execute and dependent on people whose technical expertise and knowledge of day-to-day processes often exceeds their own.
“At the same time, feedback grows scarce. People hesitate to challenge them, protect them from bad news, or soften the truth in the name of loyalty. This ‘deafening silence’ is one of the most dangerous features of senior leadership.”
One common response to this discomfort is to over-function by solving too many problems personally, covering for underperformers, or absorbing pressure that should be shared. Blanchard is blunt about the cost of this pattern: when senior leaders become heroes, they unintentionally create fragility. Teams burn out, standards erode, and the organization becomes dependent on one person’s capacity rather than a system that can sustain success.
Another temptation at this level is to default to either toughness or niceness. Some leaders lean hard into numbers and performance, unintentionally signaling that people are expendable. Others lead primarily with empathy and avoid hard conversations, hoping that care alone will inspire results. Blanchard’s guidance is clear: senior leadership requires both.
“You can be deeply human and relentlessly clear. In fact, credibility depends on it. Ultimately, senior leadership is about trade-offs that cannot be delegated. This balance becomes especially visible in moments that test character—giving feedback, setting boundaries, addressing performance gaps, or challenging peers and bosses alike.
“Senior leaders must learn to speak the language of results while also modeling respect, restraint, and emotional maturity. Influence must be the first choice over authority. Trust becomes the stabilizer that allows leaders to push, pivot, and decide without creating fear or fatal amounts of frustration.”
Blanchard’s advice for senior leaders: Let go of heroics. Create clarity, foster accountability balanced with humanity, seek the truth (even when it’s uncomfortable) and remember that your behavior speaks louder than your words.
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A Unifying Thread: Leadership as a Progression
Across all three levels—frontline, mid-level, and senior—the work of leadership does not get easier. It just gets different.
Frontline leaders learn to stop doing the work and start building others’ capability. Mid-level managers learn to hold tension without collapsing under it. Senior leaders learn to seek feedback, trade control for influence, and model desired behavior.
What connects these stages is not position, power, or personality. It is the ability to manage competing priorities—results and relationships; direction and empowerment; execution and meaning—without defaulting to extremes.
Madeleine Blanchard consistently reminds leaders: “These tensions never go away. Leadership is not about resolving them once and for all. It is about responding thoughtfully, moment by moment, to what the people around you need most.
“That is the real work of leadership. And it is available to anyone willing to do it.”
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Would you like to learn more about balancing the tensions and competing priorities that leaders at all levels face today? Join us for a free webinar!
Leading in the Squeeze: How Coaching Helps Leaders Thrive at Every Level
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Today’s leaders are constantly navigating competing demands: delivering results while building relationships, translating strategy while managing daily operations, and moving fast without losing connection to their people.
At the same time, pressures on leaders have intensified. Managers are being asked to execute ambitious goals and organizational changes, digital transformation, restructuring, and flatter hierarchies—often with expanded scope, limited authority, and little additional support or training.
This webinar explores how leadership coaching serves as a practical, high-impact solution to the modern leadership squeeze. We’ll examine the distinct tensions faced by frontline leaders, mid-level managers, and senior leaders and how coaching helps them make better tradeoffs, stay grounded in what matters most, and lead effectively amid competing demands.
Webinar participants will hear from leadership coaching expert Madeleine Homan Blanchard, who, based on decades of experience coaching leaders across industries, will share real stories, proven approaches, and hard-won lessons about what actually helps leaders succeed in today’s complex environment.
Participants will leave with:
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- Real-world examples of coaching in action that show how organizations turn overextended managers into confident, capable leaders who deliver results and strengthen connection
- Clear ways to help leaders prioritize and make tradeoffs when results, people, and pace are all competing at once
- Powerful coaching questions that leaders can ask themselves right now to reduce overload, re-engage their teams, and sustain energy without burning out
About the Author
More Content by David Witt
