We Didn’t Start the Fire: The Crisis of Middle Management in Tech

“We didn’t start the fire / It was always burning, since the world’s been turning / We didn’t start the fire / No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it” – Billy Joel

Growing up in Nevada City, California, fires were a constant threat. From summer through fall, we remained vigilant for any signs of wildfire. We lived below the local airport on Banner Mountain. The droning engines of CAL FIRE bombers taking off from the airport up the hill from us meant we knew a fire had started before the news could report it. The planes would swoop low enough that we could read their call numbers on the wings before they curved off to dump their payloads of maraschino red borate fire retardant.

I remember the thick smoke and how my mom kept a list of valuables organised by evacuation time frames: 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, and up to 4 hours. She piled our family photo albums by the front door in case we had to flee without time to pack.

As summer approaches, I feel that same alertness and unease, but I’m not looking outside for smoke; I’m checking Slack. Author Kathy Austin coined the platitude, “Managers light a fire under people; leaders light a fire in people.” I consider myself both a manager and a leader, but in the last few years, I spent more time fighting management fires than sparking passion and creativity in my teams.

I’m not alone in this struggle. Lenny Rachitsky’s recent large-scale survey of over 8,200 tech workers found that “fewer than 1 in 3 tech workers (26.6%) rate their managers as highly effective, while more than 4 in 10 (42.3%) rate their managers as ineffective.” Perhaps more telling, the survey revealed that 84% of tech employees are experiencing burnout and “44.67% of all respondents are currently experiencing significant burnout.” The data confirms what many of us feel: we’re not just tired; we’re operating in crisis mode.

As a design manager, these statistics hit particularly close to home. The survey found that “designers and researchers had the largest negative sentiment change” over the past year, and that “people in product and design roles have the most negative leadership perceptions.” The creative disciplines that once thrived on collaboration and iterative problem-solving are now among the most disillusioned segments of the tech workforce. When the people responsible for crafting human-centred experiences are themselves feeling dehumanised by their work environments, it signals a fundamental breakdown in how we value and support creative work. 

Like watching smoke rise from multiple points across a forest, these isolated statistics reveal a much larger fire spreading through the industry. The parallels between increased fire danger in forests and the increase in metaphorical fire fighting for managers are striking: just as rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, and shifting weather patterns have created conditions where fires ignite faster, spread wider, and burn longer, the tech industry’s macroeconomic shifts over the past few years have created a perfect storm for human burnout. 

Higher interest rates, inflation pressures, and regulatory changes have dried out the organisational landscape like a summer drought. Companies that once had the resources to weather occasional fires now find themselves in a perpetual state of emergency response. What used to be manageable seasonal pressures, such as product launches, quarterly reviews, and team restructuring, have now become devastating conflagrations that consume entire departments. Like climate scientists tracking the increase in fire frequency and intensity, workplace researchers are documenting similar trends in burnout rates, turnover, and mental health crises across the tech sector.

I understand this metaphor might seem dramatic, but having lived through both literal and metaphorical fires, the patterns feel similar.

Can We Prevent Forest Fires?

The recent LA fires demonstrate the catastrophic cost of climate change. Despite decades of fire management experience, communities were devastated because the underlying conditions created a perfect storm. Tech organisations face their own storm of conditions that make management burnout inevitable rather than exceptional.

I’m not suggesting work should never feel intense. Occasional crunch times serve essential purposes and can be gratifying. And some forest fires are necessary: periodic burns are vital for natural renewal. Controlled burns can achieve specific goals, such as eliminating underbrush, clearing forest floors of debris, exposing soil to sunlight, and enriching the soil. But continuing to create conditions which increase fire risk vs taking precautions to prevent unnecessary fires from getting out of control.

The US Forest Service was founded in 1905, with wildfire suppression as a critical responsibility. Forty years later, during World War II, when many American men were overseas, the Forest Service created Smokey the Bear to educate the public about fire prevention, not just suppression. His slogan became a clarion call of collective responsibility: “Only you can prevent forest fires.” They understood that prevention cost less than acute intervention after fires started. 

This isn’t a new McKinsey article on the future of middle management but it still feels relevant, an interview with the authors of “Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work.” The takeaway: Middle managers are more overburdened than ever, yet they remain essential to organisational success. There is an urgent need to redefine their roles for maximum impact.

The value at stake is huge. When we compare top-quartile companies to middle-quartile companies relative to their health, we see a three-times increase in total return-to-shareholder value at companies with healthy management practices. These are things like fostering creativity and innovation. These are basic things, like being a supportive leader...

Did you catch that? Happier managers lead to more productive teams and a 3X increase in value return. Citing macroeconomic conditions is the top reason companies argue they are making changes to their organisations and ways of working… the illusion of efficiency and compliance with the 40% rule is destroying the cultures of growth which could fuel the revenue growth these companies are chasing. 

Challenges for Managers

We Need Enough Forest Rangers

As a manager, I anticipate occasional combustible situations, ranging from team conflicts to rare emergencies. Forest rangers safeguard and conserve parklands. My leadership approach mirrors this: like a ranger, I implement the correct interventions at the best times and then give my team space to flourish.

Rangers expect to fight some natural fires, but ideally, year-round prevention work means fewer catastrophic events. We are not “hotshots”:

Interagency Hotshot crews (IHCs), commonly called Hotshots or Hotshot crews, are highly trained, specialised wildland fire handcrews that perform some of the most demanding and hazardous tasks in wildland firefighting.

If your managers are always in crisis mode then they are unable to do the thoughtful, strategic work which ensures longterm success for a team or product. 

Stop Adding Fuel to the Fire

Managerial responsibilities have expanded continuously over the years. Humans typically prefer additive change: we pile on more tasks. What we often need is subtractive change: removing responsibilities when adding new ones. The McKinsey article noted that 25% of middle management work is now administrative:

Administrative assistants never bounced back from the Great Recession—their work just went to the managers. Our research indicates that administrative work now accounts for approximately one-quarter of managers’ time. We need more time for managing as we look at productivity going forward.

Companies can assign more direct reports and add multiple performance review cycles throughout the year. They can add goals and quarterly planning steps but cannot infinitely add tasks without removing others.

AI: The False Promise of Relief

The tech industry promised that AI would eliminate administrative drudgery, freeing managers to focus on strategic work. Instead, AI has become another item on the ever-expanding list of management tasks. Managers now field questions about AI tool adoption, evaluate team productivity claims related to AI assistance, and navigate the ethical implications of AI-generated work. 

Rather than AI taking over the 25% of administrative tasks that bog down managers, we’re seeing new categories of AI-related management overhead: training teams on new tools, assessing the quality of AI-assisted output, and managing the anxiety of team members worried about AI replacing their roles. 

The promised liberation has become another fire to manage, with managers caught between pressure to demonstrate AI ROI and the reality that implementation requires human oversight, training, and cultural change management. Like advanced fire detection systems that promised early warning and automatic response but go off more often when you’re cooking dinner than during actual emergencies, AI tools demand more management attention, not less.

How Lean Is Too Lean?

Managing family or medical leave is crucial for managers. In the past few years, I have noticed a lack of proactive coverage for longer and concurrent leaves, which has made it difficult for teams to maintain momentum. This doesn’t mean people shouldn’t take necessary time away, but poorly handled leave coverage hurts team health.

Growing up in rural areas, I watched jackrabbits pass our house. Those lean hares remind me of “rabbit starvation,” a common problem for 49ers during the gold rush, who tried to live off the land. Without sufficient fat or carbohydrates, the body cannot process key nutrients. Hunters living solely on lean jackrabbit meat would ironically starve. 

How does this relate to leave coverage? Tech has cut too deep in efforts to “trim fat” and operate lean organisations. Many companies lack the necessary reserves to handle inevitable temporary team contractions when people take leave. I have one peer who has continuously been doing his job and taking on the responsibilities of another full-time role continuously for an entire year.

You might ask about backfill budgets. Yes, long-term medical leave theoretically provides coverage funding, but sabbaticals typically don’t. Having contractor dollars doesn’t guarantee finding suitable temporary replacements. Managers across companies struggle to find strong designers with good portfolios due to procurement restrictions. General staffing agencies rarely provide suitable design candidates.

Some senior leaders believe that management roles are too challenging to be filled on a temporary basis. I understand the “why bother” attitude when implementation seems complicated, but the alternative exhausts teams by increasing workloads while reducing support. Even having someone capable of handling meetings and watching for problems is better than nothing.

What options do exhausted employees have? They can take burnout leave, which may exacerbate the underlying issue, or leave the company, creating additional problems.

Turnover

Harvard Business Review’s article “More Than 50% of Managers Feel Burned Out” provides alarming statistics on how exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy increase manager turnover:

When we look at voluntary attrition, we discovered that managers experiencing exhaustion are 1.8 times more likely to leave the company compared to managers not experiencing it. For managers experiencing cynicism, this climbs to 3.0 times, and those with a lack of professional efficacy are 3.4 times more likely to leave the company. When a manager is experiencing all three dimensions, they are 5.3 times more likely to leave the company compared to a manager experiencing none.

We typically worry about losing key individual contributors. Still, as someone who has hired both managers and individual contributors, I’ve learned that ramping up a new individual contributor costs far less than onboarding a new manager.

Fire Happens

There will never be a world without fires, real or metaphorical. However, we can achieve better results from managers positioned as forest rangers, not firefighters.

In Nevada City, weekend mornings meant tending to the landscape. My safety-conscious father had us maintain a 300-foot defensible space around our house. Each fall, we raked pine needles and oak leaves; each spring and summer, we removed invasive Scotch Broom. The north property boundary was lined with manzanita shrubs.

Scotch broom is invasive in the American West, spreading rapidly during wildfires and outcompeting native plants. Manzanita (with oval, sage-green leaves on twisty, red branches) evolved in fire ecosystems. Their seeds require extreme heat for germination, breaking the seed coats to allow water penetration, thereby ensuring growth in favourable post-fire conditions.

Effective forest rangers remove problematic Scotch broom while preserving native manzanita. This requires time and authority to plan and execute across their territory. Eliminating invasive species while protecting fire-adapted natives reduces fire intensity and promotes resilient vegetation.

Managers, Don’t Doubt Yourselves

This isn’t about individual resilience; it’s about organisational design. When 84% of workers are reporting burnout, that’s a systemic problem, not a character flaw. I have no advice for frontline and middle managers; you already receive too many directives about prioritisation and “building resilience.” You can’t meditate away excessive responsibilities. The Eisenhower Matrix can’t handle simultaneous performance reviews and quarterly planning. 

I ask senior leadership across all disciplines to embrace subtractive change. Whenever you add manager responsibilities, ask: “What can we remove from their plates?” Set up your best forest rangers to protect and develop your most valuable assets. Recognise that managers need both the resources and authority to prevent fires, not just fight them.

Investing in manager wellbeing and effectiveness isn’t just suitable for managers: it delivers measurable business results. Organisations with strong, supported management see higher engagement, better retention, and significantly greater returns. When we allow managers to be strategic preventionists rather than perpetual emergency responders, everyone benefits.

Stepping Back from the Fire Line

As I write this, I’m making a difficult but necessary decision: stepping away from management to return to individual contributor work. This isn’t about giving up on leadership: I still love fostering teams, caring for the people I work with, and tending to strategy and vision for the products I help build. But like a forest ranger who’s spent too many seasons fighting fires without adequate support or resources for prevention, I need to refill my tank to be the creative, thriving human I deserve to be.

I am not a perfect manager, but I have been promoted many times and received positive feedback on my authenticity and effectiveness from my teams, peers, and leaders above me. Organisations I join flourish like well-tended groves: teams put down deeper roots, new talent branches out with confidence, and innovation blooms across the forest floor. But I am never the star player; my teams are the ones reaching toward the canopy. 

I have had to prune dead wood, and not everyone appreciated the process, but I earned respect and cultivated growth. I keep in touch with almost everyone I ever managed, celebrating as they sow their own seeds in new organisational ecosystems. I learned from my best managers how to nurture growth, and I learned what not to do from my worst managers whose practices poison the soil.

I’m most effective when I have the perspective to oversee my areas and prevent problems proactively. My mantra: being proactive beats being reactive. Given time and space, I’m an energetic and collaborative manager who loves getting things done, developing effective strategies, raising quality standards, and by being my quirky, authentic self. But I have not seen that version of me in far too long. 

I would rather step back from management than become a mediocre, burned-out supervisor who cannot fully support my team’s flourishing. 

As an individual contributor, I can still mentor, still influence strategy, still care for my colleagues’ growth and success. The difference is I’ll do it without the crushing weight of administrative overhead and the constant firefighting that has drained my creative reserves.

Maybe this is what “subtractive change” looks like on a personal level: recognising what you need to remove from your life to preserve what matters most. Until the industry learns to value prevention over reaction, some of us will have to choose our own sustainability over the roles we thought we wanted to keep forever. The forest will be here when (and if) it becomes a place where rangers can actually do the work they signed up for.