When the Bosses Go, Who’s Steering the Ship?

Is your marketing team feeling rudderless?

Facing increasingly uncertain market shifts, a growing number of companies are cutting middle managers to reduce costs, part of a growing trend some are calling “unbossing.” On paper, it sounds efficient: flatter org charts, leaner operations, and more empowered teams.

But for marketing teams, the result often looks less like empowerment and more like rudderless drift.

A recent Korn Ferry report noted that 44% of professionals have experienced managerial cuts, and nearly half of them say they feel directionless. This leaves teams, generally with less work experience (and less expensive), to define priorities, manage execution, and deliver results without the strategic air cover or hands-on guidance they once had. 

The Fallout for Marketing Teams without Bosses

When marketing leaders disappear, so does the connective tissue between strategy and execution. Messaging starts to feel inconsistent. Campaigns lose focus, become ad hoc. Analytics and KPIs are just data points instead of meaningful insights. And collaboration with sales often stalls, since no one is actively translating business needs into marketing actions. They just become “order takers” vs. strategic guides.

Even strong marketers can flounder when they’re left without clear direction or alignment to broader revenue goals. The result: teams work harder but not necessarily smarter, and performance suffers.

How CEOs or Sales Leaders Can Help

In many small- to mid-size companies, as CEOs or Sales, you also “own” the marketing function. You’re relying on marketing to fuel the funnel and help scale the organization to hit your aggressive growth goals. You’re also likely a player/coach, so you lack the time and energy needed to really steer the marketing function in a way that the team needs to get results. 

Here are a few ways to help your marketing partners stay focused and effective, even in leaner orgs:

• Clarify shared goals. Reaffirm what success looks like this quarter. Help prioritize what really matters. And make sure that sales and marketing teams both understand those priorities. This ensures marketing doesn’t get pushed into random projects.

• Create lightweight structure. Weekly check-ins or simple campaign briefs to ensure requests are on target can go a long way to keeping teams aligned.

• Bring in targeted support. You don’t need to rebuild the org chart. Fractional, project-based help can bridge the gaps without blowing up the budget.

• Champion collaboration. Make space for sales and marketing to plan together, strategy doesn’t always have to come from above. Marketing sits in a unique space where they can observe an array of internal and external dynamics and have strategic insight to offer.

  
  

For decades, I’ve watched leaders dismiss middle managers as unnecessary overhead, expecting them to deliver value without offering training, support, or a clear role. So yes, budget realities may demand a leaner structure. But in marketing, those “extra layers” often carry the expertise and context that keep teams focused and effective. If you’ve cut them, make sure your team isn’t flying blind. Otherwise, you're not just trimming fat—you’re burning through budget and headcount with nothing to show for it.

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