“Being in the middle must be hard.”
Someone once said this to me.
It stayed with me because there was something quietly accurate about it.
At work, I often find myself moving between different perspectives and different levels of the same situation.
Close enough to understand what is actually happening on the ground, while also needing to step back and look at the bigger picture. There are moments when a team member or a vendor needs someone to step in. There are also moments when I sit alongside my manager and work through what needs to happen at a higher level.
The shift can be almost seamless.
Perhaps that is what being in the middle really means.
Not simply standing between two sides, but moving between them. Understanding what each side sees, what each side needs, and what needs to happen for the work to keep moving.
That can mean giving someone a little room when things get tense, speaking up when a perspective needs to be heard, or stepping in to help turn a difficult situation into something more workable.
But helping is only part of it.
Helping someone through a situation is one thing. Making sure things actually move forward is another.
Because at the end of the day, it is still the work.
Support does not replace accountability. Understanding different perspectives does not remove the need to make decisions. And making space for people does not mean losing sight of what the work requires.
The more I experience this, the more I realise that being in the middle is less about choosing a side and more about knowing how to move between them.
Sometimes you need to step closer. Sometimes you need to step back. Sometimes someone needs support. Sometimes they need to be challenged.
The difficult part is holding those things together while still knowing where you stand.
And perhaps this is not really a workplace thing.
We find ourselves in the middle in other parts of life too — between the family we grew up in and the family we are building, between what people need from us and what we need for ourselves, between different expectations, relationships, and responsibilities.
Maybe that is why the middle feels so familiar. It asks us to hold more than one perspective without losing our own. To care without losing clarity. To take responsibility without believing we have to control everything.
And to keep moving, even when there is no perfect side to choose.
