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The Truth About the Load Middle Managers Carry
Middle managers are the backbone of the organization, the drivers of culture, and the key to team performance. And yet, no one’s asking them how they’re doing.
The Leadership Load is written from the vantage point of managers themselves—in their language, for their survival. Author Karol Figueroa has infused the narrative with real stories from managers she has helped find their way back to clarity, agency, and themselves. She knows the terrain personally because she has lived the burnout herself and watched too many talented people disappear into their roles.
The Leadership Load is a mirror and a guide for the managers carrying it all—the ones who keep getting sent to another training or offered a mindfulness app when what they need is someone to say: “We see you. Here’s how to make it through without losing yourself.”
The book moves through three parts:
- Seeing It. Understand the invisible emotional and structural burdens of the middle management role and why the impossible position you’re in isn’t a personal failure.
- Surviving It. Make the mental shifts needed to stay grounded and clear-headed in a system not built for sustainability.
- Shifting It. Use practical tools, honest reflection, and a road map to help you manage up, down, and across while maintaining your integrity and your energy.
No more suffering in silence. Come away ready to lead differently and become the manager you always imagined you could be.
Karol Figueroa-Tate is the founder and CEO of HiK Trainings®, an edtech company transforming leadership development through her own frameworks built on emotional intelligence, neuroscience, and human narrative. She came to it after more than 20 years as a senior executive at companies including Microsoft Xbox, H&R Block, Bank of America, and USAA managing departments of up to 1,600 associates, and businesses of up to $6.9 billion in revenue. She holds a master’s in international business administration from Florida International University. When she is running her company, she splits her time between Baltimore and Puerto Rico with her husband, Stanley, and their two children, Blake and Giancarlo.