In case of management, the Spanish soften (4)
I believe the answer is:
melt
'soften' is the definition.
(melting is a kind of softening)
'in case of management the spanish' is the wordplay.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'case of' suggests removing the centre (outsides of).
'the spanish' becomes 'el'.
'management' with its middle taken out is 'mt'.
'mt' placed around 'el' is 'MELT'.
(Other definitions for melt that I've seen before include "Calm" , "Go all weak" , "Turn to liquid" , "Unfreeze" , "Become liquid by heating" .)