The Middle Has Gone Missing

The missing middle isn’t coming back on its own. Here’s how we rebuild it—one season at a time.

*A leadership series from Attraxion.ai for operators rebuilding the next generation of leaders.

Everyone’s saying it — just not always out loud:

“We don’t have enough managers anymore.”

This isn’t a staffing issue. It’s a leadership-pipeline problem.

Over the last few years, org charts flattened, departments merged, and “lean teams” became survival mode. It worked — for a while. But now, senior leaders are running daily ops again, supervisors are stuck in limbo, and the next generation of leaders has no bridge to cross.

The middle hasn’t disappeared.

We just stopped developing it.

When the Bench Was Built on Trust

When I was in year two of my lifeguarding career at Six Flags, my mentor needed off-season help.

She didn’t need another warm body. She needed someone who could be trusted — to follow through, make decisions, and figure things out along the way.

So I got the call.

That off-season, I was doing recruiting, filing insurance records, rewriting SOPs — the unglamorous but essential stuff. I thought it was about earning gas money and keeping my gym-tan-laundry routine going.

What it really was doing: testing my ability to manage tasks, manage others, and build trust.

It was my unofficial leadership internship. And it worked.

When it became my turn to lead, those opportunities — small, meaningful projects during the “quiet” months — became how I built my own team.

Somewhere between then and now, those stretch roles disappeared. With every downturn or reorg, they’ve been shaved thinner until all that’s left is burnout at the top and inexperience at the bottom. We can’t undo the last few years overnight, but we can start rebuilding what’s been lost — one season, one leader at a time.

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How to Start Rebuilding Without Breaking the Budget

You don’t rebuild the middle with org charts — you rebuild it with intentional effort.

This isn’t about ballooning payroll. It’s about looking across your existing lines — the overtime, the unspent seasonal labor hours, the positions sitting open since June — and redirecting some of that budget into developing the people who are already carrying the load.

The truth is, you can afford to rebuild your bench. You just can’t afford not to.

Creating a path back to a healthy middle layer will take guts, structure, and a little creativity — but not a financial overhaul.

Here’s how to start strengthening your leadership pipeline without a dagger to your bottom line.(And don’t worry — we’ll show you where to find the dollars to fund it later in this series.)

1. Start Naming Your Replacements — Now

Every department head should have 1–2 names written down:

“If I disappeared for a week, who could keep this place running?”

If the answer is no one, that’s your first red flag.If the answer is someone, but they’re not ready yet, that’s your next project.

This isn’t succession planning. It’s operational insurance.

2. Redefine the Off-Season

If you’re seasonal, November – March is your secret weapon.Bring back a handful of high-potential supervisors for paid off-season hours — interviews, pre-opening prep, policy audits, training builds.

These aren’t filler shifts; they’re developmental sprints.

You’re buying loyalty, continuity, and capability for a fraction of the cost of hiring outside.

Every hour you spend developing an internal leader saves ten in onboarding a new one.

3. Micro-Promote, Don’t Inflate Titles

Promotions without purpose create fragile orgs.Instead, launch 30- to 60-day test flights — short, defined projects that stretch responsibility without bloating payroll.

Give them:

• Ownership of one initiative (training refresh, maintenance audit, or vendor rollout)

• A measurable outcome (deadline, savings, satisfaction score)

• A mentor check-in twice a month

  
  

If they succeed, they’ve earned more.

If they stumble, they’ve learned safely.

That’s how you rebuild capability fast — no HR overhaul required.

4. Make Mentorship a Metric

If development isn’t measured, it won’t happen.

Pair every department head with one emerging leader and track it like a KPI:

• Two check-ins per month

• One skill development per quarter

• One new project handoff by spring

  
  

If you want sustainable leadership, make developing replacements part of the job description.

5. Publish the Ladder

Uncertainty kills engagement faster than any pay gap. Even if promotions are rare, clarity keeps people invested.

Publish your department’s Path to Leadership before next season.

List exactly what skills, metrics, and behaviors indicate readiness.

Transparency costs nothing. Turnover does.

Here’s how to turn that philosophy into a practical roadmap that fits a seasonal operation’s rhythm.

The Two-Season Rebuild Plan

Flattened orgs didn’t happen overnight — and rebuilding them doesn’t have to either.Think of this as your two-season roadmap: short enough to feel urgent, long enough to create real results.

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Season One — Build the Foundation (Now → Spring)

This is your prep season — the one where you find your future leaders, test their instincts, and rebuild trust in your internal development process.

1. Identify your “off-season connectors.”The people who show up when it’s slow, who ask questions beyond their role, who notice what’s broken and want to fix it. You don’t need dozens — start with two or three per department.

   
   

2. Give them a mission, not just tasks.Let them tackle projects that matter:

   • Audit SOPs or training materials.

   • Lead recruiting or early onboarding prep.

   • Shadow managers during budget meetings or preseason planning.The goal is ownership — not observation.

     
     

3. Pair each one with a mentor. Make mentorship active, not passive.

   • Two 20-minute check-ins per month.

   • Clear goals and accountability on both sides.

   • Keep it practical: What problem did you solve this week? What did you learn?

     
     

4. Track and recognize small wins.Public recognition signals that development matters here.Shout out your “off-season MVPs” at staff meetings or in internal newsletters. Visibility builds momentum.

   
   

By the time you reopen for spring, you’ll have a few team members already operating at a higher level — confident, capable, and trusted.

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Season Two — Formalize and Scale (Spring → Fall)

Now it’s time to turn those early experiments into structure — and make development part of your operational rhythm.

1. Convert top performers into official Lead or Coordinator roles.Even small title bumps can formalize growth and build credibility. These roles don’t have to increase payroll dramatically — they simply recognize and retain your best talent.

   
   

2. Set measurable expectations for leadership readiness.Define what “promotion-ready” means across departments:

   • Mastery of current role

   • Ability to train others

   • Consistent problem-solving without escalation

   • Positive influence on team morale

     - Post it. Talk about it. Normalize it.

     
     

3. Build a visible development calendar.

   
   

   Create a cadence that reinforces growth:

   • Quarterly leadership roundtables or brown-bag lunches

   • Cross-department “ride-alongs” or shadow days

   • Peer-to-peer learning sessions led by your new LeadsWhen development has a calendar slot, it becomes culture — not an afterthought.

     
     

4. Reinvest executive bandwidth into innovation.

   As your new leaders absorb responsibility, use that regained time wisely.

   
   

   Don’t fill it with more meetings — fill it with future strategy: pricing, guest experience design, AI adoption, or operational efficiency.

   
   

   Development isn’t just succession planning; it’s capacity creation.

   
   

By the end of next fall, you’ll have something rare in this industry: A clear pipeline of trusted mid-level leaders, a culture that rewards initiative, and senior managers who finally have space to think again.

This isn’t a reorg. It’s a rebuild — one season at a time.

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The Lesson That Stuck

That off-season role didn’t just teach me how to file reports. It taught me to think like a manager before I ever held the title.

That’s how most of us learned — by saying yes to something slightly over our heads and figuring it out as we went.

Now? The calls I get every off-season are the same:

“Do you know any strong mid-level managers looking to move?”

And the answer keeps getting harder.Because the pool is near empty.

Younger managers aren’t hopping in the car with two hundred bucks, a trash bag full of your mom’s retired pots and pans (true story), and driving twenty hours for the job — the one that shaped us.

They don’t have to.

They can make $20.09 an hour lifeguarding in their hometown — with benefits and paid time off.

The grind doesn’t look the same anymore. And we can’t lead like it does.

If we want the next generation to lead our parks, our zoos, our experiences, we have to rebuild the ladder, not just complain about the climb.

Because the middle hasn’t disappeared. We just stopped showing people how to get there.