iStock; Robyn Phelps/Insider
Getting rid of them is a big mistake
Few positions in corporate America are more thankless — or more ridiculed — than that of middle manager. Stuck between the CEO and everyone else in the office, they've long been derided as petty, powerless, thumb-twiddling bureaucrats whose job is to enforce the rules, crack the whip, and stamp out any vestige of creativity or self-initiative. Middle management, the thinking goes, is make-work for the mediocre.