From Overseer To Culture Carrier: Reinventing The Middle East Middle Manager

The workplace is in flux. Across industries and regions, old hierarchies are giving way to flatter, more agile structures, and employees are demanding more purpose, flexibility, and engagement from their organizations. In this shifting landscape, one role is under particular scrutiny: the middle manager.

Long caricatured as bureaucratic bottlenecks or process overseers, middle managers are often caught between executive ambition and frontline realities. Yet, far from being obsolete, their role is undergoing a profound reinvention. Nowhere is this more evident—or more urgent—than in the Middle East, where ambitious economic transformations, demographic shifts, and national visions are reshaping the very fabric of work.

Middle Matters

Traditionally, middle managers were judged on their ability to ensure compliance, deliver on process, and monitor performance. Managers were the conduits of information flowing up and down the organizational hierarchy. Today, this narrow remit is no longer sufficient.

The expectations placed on managers have shifted dramatically, requiring them to act as culture carriers, people developers, and strategic connectors. Coaching, inspiring, and cultivating talent are now essential alongside delivering ambitious business outcomes. The role has evolved from enforcing the system to humanizing it.

In its recent Middle East Human Capital Trends 2025 report, Deloitte—the global professional services firm that I work at—found that companies across the region are increasingly recognizing this shift. Organizations are accelerating digital adoption and experimenting with new workplace models, and middle managers are emerging as the critical layer that can either make or break these transformations.

A New Skillset Of Management

So, what does this reinvention look like in practice? For one, it demands a broader set of skills than ever before. Emotional intelligence and empathy are no longer soft skills, but core leadership capabilities. The ability to manage across functions and cultures is essential in a region as diverse as the Middle East, where teams often include employees from multiple generations and nationalities.

Just as important is digital fluency— managers are evolving both as translators and enablers of the digital workplace. They must not only be comfortable with technology but also able to use it to enable collaboration, drive performance, and foster inclusion. Above all, successful managers in today’s environment must embrace ambiguity. Change is constant, and the ability to provide clarity and reassurance in uncertain times is perhaps their most valuable contribution.

From Bottlenecks To Multipliers

Too often, middle managers are dismissed as an organizational burden, slowing down innovation and clinging to outdated processes. This is a misconception. When properly empowered, middle managers can be powerful multipliers of culture and innovation.

Executive vision is translated into day-to-day behaviors through their leadership. Early signals of employee sentiment—from disengagement to burnout—are often detected at the managerial level before they surface in surveys or metrics. Acting as the glue across functions, managers connect insights from different parts of the business and generate solutions that drive progress.

Reframing the role in this way is not simply a matter of semantics—it is a strategic necessity. In the Middle East, where governments are making bold bets on digital economies, renewable energy, and future skills, managers will play a pivotal role in ensuring that these visions are translated into workplace reality.

The Organizational Imperative

If middle managers are to fulfil this expanded role, organizations must support them differently. This starts with how performance is measured. Rather than focusing solely on outputs or compliance, metrics should reflect collaboration, coaching, and cultural impact. Managers who successfully develop talent and foster inclusion should be recognized and rewarded.

Continuous learning is another priority. Too often, leadership development programs focus on executives at the top. Yet the greatest return on investment often comes from equipping managers in the middle with the skills to lead teams, navigate change, and leverage technology effectively.

Organizations must also redesign work to empower, not overwhelm, managers. This means providing tools that reduce administrative burdens and enhance visibility, rather than piling on reporting requirements. It also means fostering psychological safety, so managers feel supported in experimenting, making decisions, and even failing as part of the learning process.

Across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, organizations are discovering that employees are busier than ever, yet mission- critical outcomes remain elusive. Deloitte’s Middle East Human Capital Trends 2025 report shows the paradox clearly: while 74 percent of managers globally feel empowered to provide feedback on how to make work more valuable, only 34 percent of workers say the same, and a striking 31 percent feel not empowered at all. The cost of this disconnect is evident in cluttered workdays filled with meetings, email chains, and fragmented workflows that crowd out deep, strategic focus.

Some governments and companies are responding decisively. Saudi oil giant Aramco’s adoption of artificial intelligence-driven recruitment tools cut hiring time by 30 percent and boosted candidate quality by 25 percent, while global chemicals leader SABIC’s tech investments in human resources (HR) drove a 20% rise in employee satisfaction. In parallel, 78 percent of Saudi firms plan to increase HR technology spending within three years, the UAE’s Bayanati platform has digitized 95 percent of federal HR services, and Qatar’s Civil Service Bureau is modernizing systems for 85,000 public sector employees through a partnership with global enterprise software leader SAP. Together, these moves illustrate how reclaiming organizational capacity is becoming mission-critical in the race to deliver on national visions.

Why The Middle East Can Lead

The reinvention of management is a global phenomenon, but the Middle East has unique conditions that make it especially fertile ground for change. With one of the youngest workforces in the world, high levels of technology adoption, and bold national visions such as Saudi Vision 2030 and UAE Vision 2031, the region is not shackled by legacy organizational structures to the same extent as more mature economies.

This creates an opportunity to redefine management for the 21st century— not by replicating outdated Western models, but by building approaches that are tailored to the region’s aspirations and realities. Middle managers, if equipped and empowered, can be the bridge between policy and practice, strategy and execution, ambition and reality.

Call To Action: Invest In Your Managers

The question I posed in the Deloitte Middle East report was simple: is there still value in the role of managers?

The answer, I believe, is a resounding yes—provided we are willing to rethink and reinvent what management means. In today’s Middle East workplace, middle managers are no longer just taskmasters or information conduits, but they have evolved as culture carriers, connectors, and coaches who can unlock the potential of individuals and organizations alike.

For leaders across the region, the imperative is clear: invest in your managers, empower them, and hold them accountable, not only for results, but for culture. The future of work in the Middle East will be shaped not only by bold leaders at the top, but by the middle managers who translate ambition into daily action. Reinvention is not optional; it is essential.

About The Author

Charles Casella is Senior Manager and Associate Director at Deloitte Middle East.