Middle managers are unique because they have become the “crucial bridge” between upper management and the front line staff (IHI, 2010). That bridge designates middle managers as leadership and subordinates roles at the same time during the course of employment. They will have a team of staff members to supervise and influence to help the organization reach or fulfill the visions, missions, objectives, measurements, and goals of which upper manager see fit for the organization. Middle managers, as subordinates, will also have to be in a situation where, they will be directed and influenced by upper management to convey and help aid in the implementations of the visions missions, and goals of the organization to the staff and faculty. This is a situation where the unclear definition of middle management begins. As explained in Embertson’s (2006) essay pointed out that the common definitions of middle managers are any personnel that fall between upper management and front line staff. This leaves so many staff members that can fall into this category, to focus the aim of this essay and this section; we will be viewing middle management as a general topic and looking at two specific roles: Quality Improvement (QI) Manager and Medical …show more content…
They are the personnel that disseminate the description of the quality measures developed by upper management, develop strategies to collect and interpret the QI information for upper management, and they will change, adjust, and customize the processes and tasks to continually maintain an effective method of QI (Birken et al, 2012; Byrnes & Fifer, 2010; IHI, 2010). QI managers must be able to develop expert knowledge on quality improvement frameworks; such as Diffusion Innovation Theory (Rodgers, 1962), and Model for Improvement including Deming’s Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle (IHI, 2012; API, 2015). Middle managers within QI must be a person with the skills and experience within quality measurement to be able to set priority improvement areas, help address, teach, advise team members with little experience within QI, and be able to set up meeting agendas to seek improvement and problem solutions with the team that they are