0 one of the group of people in a company who are in charge of departments or groups, but who are not in charge of the whole company:
1 a manager who is in charge of people or departments in a company, but is not in charge of the whole company and does not take important decisions about the company's future:
Middle managers - department heads, project leaders, etc. - often hold the key as to whether a company will be successful or not.
Hiring a layer of middle managers is impractical for such a small business.
So many middle managers are gone and so many rank-and-file jobs have changed that upper management might not have a clue what's happening at the lower levels.
The crunch comes when a middle manager is passed over for promotion and realizes he's going only so far in his job.
As a result, companies are squeezing out middle managers who are seen as no longer needed.
