McKinsey Classics | September 2023

Redefining the frontline manager

Frontline managers are responsible for an outsize proportion of companies’ workforces—nearly two-thirds—yet they are often hobbled under the weight of administrative work, endless meetings, and various nonmanagerial tasks such as traveling or training. All this has them operating like cogs in a machine and keeps them from their most crucial role: managing the front line. And that comes at a cost to companies, including low employee morale and a working environment where there’s not much encouragement to make improvements.

Best-practice companies are redefining the role of the frontline manager, empowering these leaders with more decision-making ability, greater flexibility to address problems and implement solutions, and more time devoted to coaching their workers.

“In difficult economic times,” the authors of this McKinsey classic wrote, “making employees more productive is even more crucial than it is ordinarily.” Nearly a decade and a half later, today’s frontline managers are finding themselves in similarly volatile times, with ever-shifting hybrid work environments and ever-demanding omnichannel operations. To learn more about how to turn your frontline managers into winning leaders and your front line into winning workers, read our 2009 classic “Unlocking the potential of frontline managers.”

— Drew Holzfeind, editor, Chicago