You’re Not Just a Messenger. You’re a Meaning-Maker

Middle managers are the most overlooked storytellers in your company—and how to fix that.

Julia stood in front of her team for the third time that month. Another change. Another eye-roll. Another “Didn’t we already try this?” moment. Her team nodded when leadership announced the strategy—but nothing changed. Why?

Most organizations treat communication like a box to check: announce the change, send the email, hold the town hall. Then comes the confusion. The resistance. The dip in morale. The dreaded question: Didn’t we already tell them? Here’s the disconnect: strategy doesn’t cascade. Meaning does. And the people who determine whether that meaning sticks or slips through the cracks? Middle managers.

The Translation Layer That Makes or Breaks Strategy

Middle managers sit at a paradoxical intersection: they’re expected to execute leadership vision and surface frontline insights, often in the same breath. They’re not just conduits for information. They’re the translators of intent into action.

Yet most organizations treat managers like relay runners—handing them the baton and hoping they don’t drop it. The problem is, messages aren’t batons. They’re stories. And stories need shaping, not forwarding.

Research from McKinsey shows that 70% of change efforts fail not because the strategy was flawed, but because people didn’t understand it or believe in it. The breakdown isn’t at the top or the bottom. It’s in the middle.

Visualize a loop:

• Executives create strategy → Managers interpret and deliver → Frontline teams take action
• Frontline insights → Managers synthesize → Executives adjust course

When the meaning is missed, the loop breaks.

From Communicator to Storyteller: A Mindset Shift

You’re not a repeater. You’re not a filter. You’re a meaning-maker. That means when a new initiative drops, your job isn’t to say, “Here’s the update.” It’s to say, “Here’s what this means for us.”

Take Julia again. When she reframed the message around a real story—a recent delayed intake that led to a critical care lapse—the team connected the dots. The change was no longer “another admin task”—it was a fix that could save lives. The story changed the message. And the message changed the behavior. And what about communicating change to teams that are already overwhelmed? The instinct may be to sugarcoat or downplay it. But the opposite builds more trust. Acknowledge the fatigue directly: “I know we’ve had a lot of change. And I want to walk through why this one matters, how we’ll support each other through it, and what we can shape together.” Transparency is grounding—and naming the emotional context helps people metabolize the shift.

What High-Impact Managers Do Differently

Great managers do four things that most communicators don’t:

1. They translate up, down, and across to have meaning land.
   Great managers convert strategy into relevance for their teams, surface insights upward with credibility, and align peers across functions with clarity and empathy. Sometimes, communicating isn’t about asking for a change. It’s about giving others a window into perspectives they’re not hearing. 
2. Own the Message, Even If You Didn’t Author It.
   Managers sometimes think: “This isn’t my idea, so I’ll just repeat it and let people draw their own conclusions.” But in high-functioning organizations, leaders don’t just forward strategy—they embody and interpret it. Even if they disagree, their job is to align the team around the “why” and lead the shift forward.
3. People Don’t Need to Agree—They Need to Understand.
   Strong communicators know that people commit to change when they understand the rationale. The real goal isn’t to get everyone to like the change—it’s to help people understand why it matters to the business and what it means for them. This creates clarity and builds trust—even when people aren’t thrilled about it.
4. They tailor the message to the audience.
   By stepping into the mindset of your audience, you avoid defaulting to generic updates and instead create messages that drive action, reduce resistance, and build alignment. Executives care about ROI, strategy and risk. Frontline teams tend to care about expectations, workload and company stability. One size doesn’t fit all. 

The Audience Impact Map

When communication fails, it’s often not because the content was wrong—it’s because the message didn’t land with the audience. That’s where AIM—the Audience Impact Map—comes in.

It’s not just about what you say—it’s about how your audience hears it, and what they care about most.

This tool helps you pause before hitting send or walking into the room. It asks you to reflect:

• Who am I speaking to?
• What do they care about?
• How might they (mis)interpret this message?
• How do I frame it in a way that connects with their priorities?

AIM: The Audience Impact Map

Use this to adapt your message for the audience you need to reach:

For example

• Without AIM: “Leadership decided to consolidate systems by end of month.”
• With AIM : “I know this adds more to your plate, and we’ll need to navigate it together. But here’s why this shift matters—and how it’s important long-term.”

Don’t just pass the message. Lead it.

Because when you do, you don’t just create alignment. You create momentum. If strategy is the engine, middle managers are the transmission. And the best ones? They don’t just drive execution—they drive belief. If you want better strategy execution, invest in the messengers who make strategy mean something.