5 ways to escape middle management and fast-track your journey to the top

Climbing the career ladder requires some special characteristics. London Business School suggests successful leaders in 2025 have a blend of capabilities, allowing them to build trust and deliver results.

If you’re in a middle management position and want to reach the top table, how can you start honing the right characteristics today that will make you a strong candidate to be tomorrow’s business leader?

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Five senior executives give us their tips for moving from middle management to the upper echelons of business.

1. Work with a role model

Bev White, CEO at recruiter Nash Squared, said middle managers and business leaders are very different animals.

“One is about managing teams to meet deadlines and get work done, the other is about communicating the vision and leading the way,” she said.

White said not everyone can make the leap from management to leadership.

“My advice would be to look around you and identify a great leader, a role model you admire,” she said. “Study how they work, what they do, how they communicate.”

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White told ZDNET she had a hugely influential role model early in her career.

“He used storytelling as a leadership technique — something I picked up and now try to put into practice myself,” she said. “Learn from these role models, make them your mentor or coach, on either an informal or formal basis.”

White also said would-be senior executives should hone their leadership skills by completing development courses.

“Then put that knowledge into practice and see what works,” she said. “This is another area where a mentor can pay dividends. They can help you objectively review how you’re doing and what you should work on to make that jump into the leadership ranks.”

2. Take people under your wing

Madoc Batters, head of cloud and IT security at Warner Leisure Hotels, said moving from middle manager to business leader means shifting focus from yourself to your team.

“You need to work in empathy,” he said. “Understand where people are coming from and know their challenges. Everybody’s different, so appreciate how you can help.”

Batters said assistance for one person might not work for another.

“Success is about understanding people are different, finding out how you can support those people, and helping them progress and flourish in their position,” he said.

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Batters told ZDNET that the people who move from manager to business leader also listen carefully to their staff.

“It’s important to ensure your staff come to work happy. They probably spend more time with people at work than with their families. So, you have to make the workplace enjoyable,” he said.

“I always hear that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. So, you should ensure you can inspire people and hopefully get them to a position where you would hope they would be in the future.”

3. Show your authentic self

Caroline Carruthers, CEO at consultant Carruthers and Jackson, is an experienced senior executive who says the best way to reach the top is to understand what you’re good at and to be authentic.

Carruthers told ZDNET she’s a big fan of the Japanese concept Ikigai.

“It’s the practice of understanding what you’re good at, what you enjoy, what the market will pay for, and where you think you’ll fit. That’s something I’ve done through my career,” she said.

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Carruthers said developing a sense of authenticity wasn’t always straightforward, especially during the early stages of her career.

“I tried so hard. When I first started in business, I was told what color suit to wear and how to fit in,” she said.

“I was working mostly with male teams and those men were brilliant with me. But I thought to be successful, I had to imitate everybody else, and I think many people coming into the business world do that. So, I tried to be something I wasn’t.”

While Carruthers was successful, she recognized that she wasn’t being authentic. Once she understood what she was good at and where she could contribute, she moved into senior executive positions.

“My career was perfectly acceptable and I was doing well. But when I went, ‘Do you know what? This is me. This is what I think,’ that’s when my career skyrocketed.”

4. Gain a great reputation

Michael Vuong, head of project management at retailer BrandAlley, said working extremely hard is the only route to the top.

“That approach will usually gain you the recognition you need,” he said.

Vuong told ZDNET that upwardly mobile professionals should support their strong work ethic with a great contacts book.

“Work on building the network to get you where you want to be,” he said.

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Vuong draws on a tight group of trusted experts as he fulfills different project management roles.

“I work with the same network. They know what I’m capable of and what they’re capable of. We work well together from project to project,” he said.

Vuong’s success means senior executives recognize his reputation for leading projects.

“I usually get recommended for a lot of similar projects, which are digital transformations, mergers and acquisitions, or complicated projects where others might struggle,” he said.

“My experience is knowing what not to do and giving that advice to some of the CEOs of the companies I work with.”

5. Become an industry pioneer

Stephen Mason, advanced digital technologies manager for global industrial operations at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), said the people who progress beyond middle management take a forward-looking view.

“It’s about not doing what you’ve always done, understanding where the industry is heading, and trying to get on the forefront of change,” he said.

Mason told ZDNET about an example from his career where he led the implementation of Ericsson Private 5G in JLR’s manufacturing processes at its Solihull plant in the UK.

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He had to build the board’s confidence to understand and support the pioneering implementation.

JLR uses these 5G foundations for data-led innovation and an AI-enabled digital transformation across its manufacturing production line. Mason has reaped the benefits of his pioneering professional approach.

“No one in the business initially believed 5G was the way forward. But what’s been the catalyst for me is persevering, seeing the industry trends, observing what other people are doing, and knowing where the networking industry is heading,” he said.

“I’ve based my last few career jumps around private 5G and data ingestion because I could see where the industry was going. And now we’ve hit AI and all these other elements that need 5G and the Internet of Things, that knowledge has cemented my position.”