Chapter 5: Middle Managers as Game Changers: Strategies for Reducing Resistance and the Role of LMX

While change has become ubiquitous in today's competitive global marketplace, successful change remains elusive for many organizations. Indeed, research and popular press continue to report tales of change efforts that fail to achieve their intended objectives (Beer, 2003). According to Kotter and Schlesinger (2008), failed change efforts may result from a poorly crafted strategic plan or other factors outside an organization's control. In other instances, however, organizations may begin with a great game plan but simply fail to execute that plan. In this chapter we discuss the latter, focusing on the challenging role that mid-level managers hold as the game changers charged with altering employee behaviors and routines.