When clients insist on working with you personally, the bottleneck is rarely about your team’s ability. It is about two separate problems: your team needs your method translated into real training, and your clients need a clear, confident message that your team delivers the same standard you do. Lia walks through the exact moves to solve both sides, from codifying your secret sauce to publicly edifying your team members in front of clients. This episode is most useful for founders, consultants, agency owners, and service-based business leaders who are stuck as the face of every client relationship.
This episode is part of the Delegation, Bottleneck & Getting Out of the Weeds series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“Managing is about setting a direction, empowering people, helping cultivate their skills and superpowers and strengths and see, oh, this is possible for me.”
“…about 77% of managers never got any training at all. So it’s actually pretty likely that the people that are managing folks on your team haven’t had any training.”
“…your managers are learning on the job at the expense of their team members. So the longer it takes them to figure it out, the more kind of messy it can get.”
“It is by imparting those skills on them so they can lead confidently because without that you will be sucked in every day.”
Episode highlights
Why promoting someone does not automatically create a real manager
Hiring managers is a huge milestone, but the title change does not do the work on its own. Lia opens with the honest reality: if you are still being pulled into every decision and every issue, it means your managers have not been fully deputized. The culprit is almost always one of three things, and the first place to look is at yourself.
About 77% of managers have never received any formal training. So the person you just promoted into a leadership role has likely been figuring it out through trial and error for years. That is not a character flaw. It is a gap you can actually close.
Where you might be accidentally keeping yourself in the middle
Before blaming your managers, Lia asks the harder question: where are you reinforcing the problem? If your managers know that even when they make a call you would have done it differently, of course they keep deferring to you. The fix is not telling them to just trust themselves. The fix is opening the hood.
Share the context behind how you make decisions, department by department. What are the easy calls? What are the tough ones? What criteria do you run through? Who do you consult? Walk them through your actual thought process three, four, or five times on real decisions that come up. You are already making the decision anyway, so narrating it costs you nothing and teaches them everything.
The “teach them how to fish” method for decision-making
When a manager comes to you asking you to make a call, do not just say yes and move on. Use that moment. Tell them: for the next three times this type of question comes up, I am going to walk you through how I am thinking about it. Then do exactly that. Is it going to affect the client? Does it change pricing? Walk through the checklist out loud. That checklist is one you are already running in your head. The only difference is now they can hear it.
This is how you build a manager who makes decisions confidently, not one who keeps checking in. And when they do get it right, celebrate it loudly. Recognition is what converts competence into confidence.
When managers do not actually want to manage
Right now only three in ten people say they want to be managers. So it is entirely possible that the person you promoted is dragging their feet about the people side of the role. Lia is direct here: if managing people is part of the job description, it is part of the job. Wanting the title and the responsibility without the people leadership is not a viable setup.
That said, there are structural workarounds worth exploring in specific contexts, like a creative director who partners with an art director who handles the day-to-day team oversight. But those arrangements require honest assessment of whether mentorship and accountability can still flow properly.
The bigger issue is the myth that managing people takes enormous extra time. It does not, when you know how to do it. The narration method above is built into conversations you are already having. Managing is not approving timesheets. It is setting direction, developing people, giving feedback, and holding the vision for a department.
The three skills every manager must actually build
For managers who want to lead but just were not trained, Lia names the three skills that solve most of the chaos:
Giving feedback. Hard for everyone. Hard for Lia. Hard for your managers. But without it, performance problems fester and you end up handling them yourself.
Delegating. Managers who cannot let go of tasks stay overloaded, which means they keep pulling you in. Delegation is a learnable skill, not a personality trait.
Holding people accountable. This is the hardest one. It is feedback, but after a deadline has been missed or a commitment was not kept. It is uncomfortable, which is exactly why people avoid it. But avoiding it is what creates the low performance, unclear expectations, and constant escalations that land back on your desk.
These three skills are trainable. Your managers are currently learning them on the job, at the expense of their team members. The faster you close the gap with real training, books, podcasts, or live coaching, the faster you get the breathing room you hired them for.
The actual shift that frees you up
Changing someone’s title does not change anything. Updating your org chart does not change anything. What changes things is giving your managers the tools to lead confidently. That means clarity on what you want them to own, context on how decisions should be made, and real skill-building in feedback, delegation, and accountability. When those pieces are in place, you stop being the default. They step up because they actually know how.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 233: Why you’re still the point person for everything (and how to fix it). Being stuck as the final decision-maker on everything is almost never a delegation problem. Before delegation can work, three things have to be in place: the right people, clarity on where you as the owner should focus, and simple systems that reduce noise. This episode is most useful for business owners and team leads who have already hired and communicated expectations but are still buried in the weeds.
- Ep 231: Why delegating keeps failing (and the shift that actually fixes it). Delegation fails when leaders dispatch tasks instead of handing off outcomes, keeping themselves as the bottleneck at every step. The fix is shifting from fetch-the-answer assignments to giving a team member ownership of a full result, with clear context, defined success, and agreed checkpoints. This episode is especially useful for leaders who know they should delegate more but still find everything coming back to them.
- Ep 225: How to stop being the bottleneck on every decision your team makes. When your team brings every decision to you for final sign-off, you are doing two jobs at once and your team is never building real ownership. Lia’s fix is to articulate your own decision-making process, then deliberately offload specific decisions with a simple communication system so you stay informed without staying in the weeds. This episode is especially useful for founders and team leads whose capable people are still waiting on them before moving forward.
- Ep 221: Clients keep asking for you by name. How do you hand off work without losing their trust?. When clients insist on working with you personally, the bottleneck is rarely about your team’s ability. It is about two separate problems: your team needs your method translated into real training, and your clients need a clear, confident message that your team delivers the same standard you do. Lia walks through the exact moves to solve both sides, from codifying your secret sauce to publicly edifying your team members in front of clients. This episode is most useful for founders, consultants, agency owners, and service-based business leaders who are stuck as the face of every client relationship.
Want to go deeper?
The Unstoppable Team. How to build a team that runs without you in the room.
Full transcript (click to expand)
I think when people think managing is just like, I just don’t want to improve the timesheets and like, you know, answer the vacation requests. That is literally not what managing is. Managing is about setting a direction, empowering people, helping cultivate their skills and superpowers and strengths and see, oh, this is possible for me, like it’s all this other stuff. That’s really what the job is about. Welcome to Leading Small Teams, a Real Talk podcast tackling the ins and outs of leading teams in the modern workplace.
I’m Leah Garvin, your host, with a decade of experience driving team operations in companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft, bringing you insider strategies to make you a more confident and effective leader. From delegating to feedback to avoiding micromanaging and more, this podcast gives you the tools to empower your team, scale yourself as a leader, and grow your business. Whether you’re managing a team of one or 100, everyone is welcome to hang out with Leading Small Teams.
You hit this huge milestone that was supposed to make everything easier. You hired managers to oversee people or departments in your team. Now, this is supposed to free you up big time so that you don’t have to worry about all the little details. You don’t have to give all the feedback. You don’t have to have all the performance conversations. You don’t have to set the expectations. This is freedom as a leader, especially if you’re running a business, you’ve got so many other things to think about.
And then you look at your managers and you think, well, why am I still being pulled in the weeds? Why are they asking me to make all the decisions? Why are people still coming to me for these different situations, whatever they are? And when that happens, my friends, that is when we have not fully deputized our managers to really own that responsibility. And if you are still being pulled in, it might be a signal that your managers don’t really know that they’re supposed to be doing that.
It might mean that you’re subtly hinting that you want to be in the weeds because you’re still asserting yourself into the conversation. Okay, this is a real talk. So if that’s the case, no judgment, but sometimes that’s what’s happening there. Or your managers actually don’t know how to be managers. And fortunately, the queen of manager development right here, I love working with managers. And so when that is the challenge, well, this is where you have so much opportunity because you may have folks that are really, really seasoned, but they’ve never actually gotten the foundation of learning what it even means to be a manager and what the basics of doing that are.
And I’m telling you, folks can have been managing teams in many environments for many, many years and never actually got that foundation because about 77% of managers never got any training at all. So it’s actually pretty likely that the people that are managing folks on your team haven’t had any training, most likely, right? So you get to this point where you’re able to up-level yourself, you’re able to scale yourself. And the fact that you can’t do that, yeah, we got to fix this.
This is heartbreaking. Now let’s start with the part where you play a role in it. Because with everything with our teams, the first question we want to ask ourself is, okay, where am I reinforcing this? Where am I playing into this? Where am I getting in the way? This is not a blame game. This is a question that liberates you from having to be in the middle. So when you think about, okay, where am I getting in the way?
It might be that, I don’t know, you are very particular about how certain things are done. And your managers know that even when they make a call, you’re like, well, I kind of wouldn’t have done this. So this is our first moment as a leader to make a shift. And one of the most powerful tools we can give folks is context. So not just telling your leaders, okay, I trust you make the decision. And then they make a decision and you’re like, it’s not right.
And then you’re kind of stuck. Should I change it? I don’t want this. No. Let’s not even go there. Impart on your managers how you make decisions, department by department. What are the things that are easy calls? What are tough calls? What’s the criteria that you think through when you’re making a decision? What are the non-negotiables? Who are you consulting with? Open the hood. Let them under, into the, whatever. Let them understand your thought process when making a decision.
The more insight you can give into how you make decisions, how you would have made the decision that they came to you with that you want them to be making. Talk them through it. Maybe do that three, four or five times. Start to get them comfortable with the way that you’re making decisions, especially if it’s the way that you want them to be making decisions. This is absolutely game changing because it literally doesn’t take any time.
If you are, if your team member who’s managing folks, your department leader, whatever, comes to you and says, Hey, can you, can you make this call on this thing? And you say, yes, this is the kind of thing that I want you to be taking on. But for the next three times this comes up or your next three questions, let me narrate and walk you through how I’m making that decision. Okay. I considered this. Does it have an impact on the client?
Is it going to change the price of our service or product? Is it going to, and you walk through that checklist. That’s the checklist you’re already going to walk through because you’re making the decision this time. And then you are teaching them how to make that on their own. You’re teaching them how to fish. This is good stuff. That’s how we start to at least solve for that. That person doesn’t really, that you’re kind of getting in the weeds even when you say you don’t want to be, or you’re making the decisions or you’re kind of the de facto decision maker because nobody really knows how to get it right with you.
Okay. And if people are saying, well, I don’t want to get it wrong. That’s both a confidence thing and it’s also you showing them, well, what does it mean to get it right? Here’s how I think through it. And when you do it in that way, it will be right. Now the confidence piece is resolved by when they get it right. You saying, yes, great job. Or when they have a great idea saying, oh, I love that.
Like let’s bring more of that. You’re reinforcing and recognizing and celebrating that you’re having a party when they make a good decision. But you’re saying, oh, that was awesome. Like I love how you made that call. Like let’s do more of that, right? So you’re reinforcing that’s going to build confidence and that’s going to solve that issue over there. If you’re anything like me, you’ve had those nights where you wake up at three in the morning wondering, gosh, are people working on the right things?
Or what’s the status of that project? And obviously you can’t email folks at that time, but the tools you’re using, ClickUp or Asana or Slack, it’s just too detailed. You need a bird’s eye view. Enter the snippets template. At the end of each week, your team member fills out the highlights from the week, any places they’re stuck and the top parties for next week. So you’re never wondering, are folks working on the right things? Are there things that they haven’t brought up that really should be on my radar?
And most importantly, what wins can we celebrate as a team? Grab your copy at LeahGarver.com slash snippets. So let’s say the issue is that, you know, your managers, they don’t really want to take responsibility. They feel overloaded and they’re like, don’t really want to be managers. They don’t want to deal with that stuff, but they’re like, I want the responsibility, but I actually don’t want to take that on. That’s not my problem. You want to lead a division and part of that is managing and overseeing people, then that is the job description of it.
So I hear a lot like, oh, I want this person to take this on, but they don’t want to deal with all the personnel stuff. They don’t want to be a leader. They don’t want to manage people. It’s like, if that’s what you need for the job, that’s what you need for the job. A lot of times people think it takes all this extra time to manage people. That’s a fallacy that is not really accurate unless you don’t know how to do the job, which is one example of doing it is what I was just recommending of like narrating, explaining it in context, sort of building the teaching into actual conversations you’re already having.
If your leaders don’t want to be leaders and right now only three in 10 people say they want to be managers. So again, pretty likely they’re like dragging their feet about it. Then this is a moment to get that person some training, get that person up-skilled and reinforced. This is the job to be a leader of this division. It involves managing people. So now it’s about just resetting expectations. If they are super, super, super skilled, but they’re just not, you feel like they’re not equipped to be a manager.
I think that you kind of got to figure out what is your structure here? How are you holding people to the same standard? I don’t know. Come to me. Hello at LadyGarber.com if you want to talk through the nuance of your team. I know there’s situations where it makes sense. Sometimes I’ve seen dynamics where a creative director doesn’t want to manage the designers. So maybe they have an art director who’s a little bit more and they’re managing everyone, but it’s still in that line of business.
Okay. I’ve seen that work before or a creative director and the executive producer is actually overseeing everyone. I think that’s a bit trickier because the executive producer is potentially not of that creative domain. So the mentorship wouldn’t be there, but you know, you can do indirect managing through the creative director can still provide that guidance. But I think when people think managing is just like, I just don’t want to improve the time sheets and answer the vacation requests.
That is literally not what managing is. Not at all. Managing is about setting a direction, empowering people, helping cultivate their skills and superpowers and strengths and see, oh, this is possible for me. It’s all this other stuff that is done through conversation and observing someone’s work and giving feedback and having one-on-ones. That’s really what the job is about. So if someone doesn’t want to do that, I question like, how are they setting a vision for their department and its growth if they don’t want to deal with the people in it?
Like that would be a concern for me, just like calling it out. All right. Last part, if your managers want to do it, but they don’t have the skills, they’re like, oh, I didn’t know I’m supposed to have one-on-ones. I’m not, I didn’t know I was supposed to give feedback. This is what I see the most often. I think, you know, even though I said three in 10 people want to be managers, like for the ones that are in it, their challenge is they actually don’t know how because we haven’t trained our managers.
And a lot of times folks grow in your company and they become a leader again, we said. And there wasn’t a time or like this moment of like, oh, wait, we should actually take a step back and make sure you have these foundations. That right there is when we have to train our people. And my book, The New Manager Playbook, I wrote it because of this challenge, because when I became a manager, I was managing a former peer.
It was a freaking disaster. I didn’t know anything that I was supposed to be doing. He was a really low performer, so I had to be doing, giving feedback and dealing with all these issues he had to start on the team. And I’m like, why is there nothing out there? And I worked in a freaking Fortune 100 company where they should have a lot of resources, right? So it’s pretty likely that you don’t have a whole set of manager resources and you’re maybe, you know, looking at is, should I give him a book or a coach or a research?
Like whatever it is, I would give your managers a couple of different things. Yeah, start them with The New Manager Playbook, I highly recommend, but have them listen to podcasts like this so that they’re starting to work through issues. And then I really think having some kind of training where they can think through scenarios, they get the foundations, they get to practice, they get to sort of get that solid baseline is going to be very, very helpful.
Because your managers are learning on the job at the expense of their team members. So the longer it takes them to figure it out, the more kind of messy it can get. It doesn’t have to be. So I do think having some kind of training, digital in person, whatever it looks like, whatever you have budget for is very, very valuable. Even if it is a conversation that the two of you have about what does it mean to be a manager in this team?
What are the expectations? What are you wanting to hold them accountable to? They’re starting to reset into that. And then they also can ask, okay, well, this is the part that feels trickier to me. Maybe actually I would ask you to invite that out of them. So say what’s feeling comfortable, what feels harder, so that you have an understanding of where they might need some acute support. Spoiler, the things that are harder because it’s always the case.
Giving feedback, always really hard for folks. It’s hard for me, it’s hard for you, right? Of course it’s hard for your managers. Delegating, always very hard. I don’t want to overload someone. I don’t know what to offload on myself. It takes too long to delegate. We’ve all heard it. We’ve all said it. Delegating is another skill that folks need to build to be a good manager. Feedback, delegating, setting expectations. This is talking about what we’re doing here.
Setting things up with clarity, talking about what we need to check in, what success looks like. That’s a core skill, but I think that one is an easier one to pick up. The hardest one, holding people accountable. It’s harder than feedback and it’s harder than delegating. Holding people accountable is what conversation do you have after a deadline is missed, after something doesn’t happen? What’s the follow-up? So it’s like feedback, but not always in the best situation.
But it creates the best situations because that’s what creates all of the good things that happen after. So those three things are what you really want to make sure your managers understand and can do effectively. Feedback, delegating, and holding people accountable brings back the feedback and expectation setting, so maybe it’s just two things, right? Manageable. But people don’t just figure that out in their uncomfortable situations, which we might be avoiding. If we’re avoiding feedback and we’re avoiding delegating, we might be taking a lot more on.
So you’re saying, why are my managers so overloaded and they’re pulling me in for that reason? Why are my managers not, why are their team, they don’t know what’s going on with their team members. Why are their team members not performing well? Why do I have to be dealing with this? All of that is because your managers aren’t actually doing the responsibility of managing. So you hired people to be managers, great, that’s a huge win. Now you can scale yourself before you leap out of that role.
You have to get those folks grounded in what it means to be a manager, where you’re going to be plugged in, where you’re not, what you want them to come to you for, what you don’t, and then give them the tools to lead effectively. And I’m telling you, when you give them those tools, that’s when the shift is made. It’s not by changing their titles. It’s not by changing your org chart. It is by imparting those skills on them so they can lead confidently because without that you will be sucked in every day.
Even if you don’t have the manager skills yourself and you’re like, I’m not good at this. Why are you asking me? Because it’s, they look to the person that’s running the ship, right? So we’ve got to give them those tools, books, new manager playbook. If folks want to read a book, the podcast, this formerly known as the new manager playbook podcast, 200 plus episodes on fundamental skills of how to be a manager, free resource or training, live training, digital, whatever you need, your managers need something.
I’ve got the tools. Email me at helloatlegover.com if you want some support out of my library or if you have resources inside of your own company, plug into those, please invite your team members to take those courses, take those trainings and make the space. Give them an opportunity because when they get upskilled, they will start to take that pressure off you. I promise. See you next time. Thanks for tuning in and I hope this podcast makes leading your team feel just a little bit easier.
If you liked this episode, check out my most popular tool for staying in the know of what your team’s working on without having to micromanage at leogarvin.com slash snippets. And if you’re looking for more support for yourself as a leader or for the team you’re managing, don’t hesitate to reach out at leogarvin.com. See you next time.
Questions this episode answers
Why are my managers still coming to me with every decision even though I hired them to take that off my plate?
There are usually three reasons this happens. First, your managers may not fully understand that making those calls is actually their job. Second, you might be subtly pulling yourself back into decisions without realizing it. Third, and most commonly, your managers simply were never trained on how to manage. About 77% of managers never receive any formal training, so the people leading your departments may have years of experience but no real foundation in what the role actually requires.
How do I teach my managers to make decisions the way I would without micromanaging them?
Share the context behind how you make decisions, not just the outcome. Walk your managers through your actual thought process: what criteria you weigh, what the non-negotiables are, who you consult, what makes a call easy versus hard. The next few times they bring you a decision, narrate exactly how you are working through it. Do that three to five times and you are teaching them how to think through it on their own. This takes no extra time because you are already making the decision, and you are building their ability to do it without you.
What are the most important skills to make sure my managers actually have?
The three skills that matter most are giving feedback, delegating, and holding people accountable. Feedback is hard for almost everyone and managers will avoid it if they do not know how to do it well. Delegating is something most managers resist because they think it takes too long or they do not want to overload their team. Holding people accountable is the hardest of the three because it means having a follow-up conversation after a deadline is missed or a commitment is not kept. When managers avoid all three, their teams underperform and you end up pulled back into the details.
My manager doesn't want to deal with the people side of leadership. Is that fixable?
It depends on whether they are avoiding it because they lack skills or because they genuinely do not want to do it. If it is a skills gap, training can close that quickly. If they simply do not want to manage people, that is a job description conversation you need to have. Managing is not just approving time sheets, it is setting direction, giving feedback, developing people, and having the hard conversations. If someone wants to lead a department but does not want to do any of that, there is a real mismatch between the role and what they are willing to take on.
How do I build my manager's confidence so they stop second-guessing every decision?
Two things drive confidence: clarity and recognition. First, show them what a good decision looks like by walking them through your reasoning out loud so they know how to get it right. Second, when they do make a good call, say so directly. Tell them you loved how they handled it and that you want to see more of that. Celebrating good decisions out loud reinforces that they are capable of owning the responsibility, and over time that recognition replaces the hesitation that keeps them running every question back to you.