You have a team, so you are a manager. Now what?

If you have team members, if people are working for you full or part-time, contract or whatever, you’re a manager. And yes, there are differences between leadership skills and managing skills and all that. But I think when we really embrace the identity of being a people manager, we can then really approach it with intentionality. And we can make sure we’re showing up the best we can for our team members. Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast. I’m Leah Garvin, your host and team operations consultant.

Through this show and my signature Ops Playbook, I condense a decade of experience driving team operations in some of the most influential companies in tech to save you time, money, and stress. It doesn’t matter if you’re a business owner who realized that running a team isn’t as easy as you thought it would be, or a new manager looking to learn the ropes, or a seasoned manager ready to up their game. Everyone is welcome to hang out with Managing Made Simple.

From conflicts to feedback to delegating and more, we leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it, and everything in between. Let’s go. Welcome back to the show. So the other day I was talking to a business owner of a cafe and she was sharing me some of the struggles that she was having managing her team. And I said, you know, well, here’s some things to think about as a manager.

And she looked at me like, manager? I don’t have any managers on my team. And it hit me in that moment that, oh shit, this person, they don’t realize that they’re a manager. And this has been coming up a lot lately for me as I talk to business owners who have teams, not really recognizing that identity. That if you have team members, if people are working for you, full or part-time, contractor, whatever, you’re a manager. And yes, there are differences between, you know, leadership skills and managing skills and all that.

But I think when we really embrace the identity of being a people manager, we can then really approach it with intentionality. And we can make sure we’re showing up the best we can for our team members. So all of you listening out there, if you’re a business owner with a team, it is not too late. We are going to help you really, you know, find yourself in that identity so that you can best support your team.

And if you’re in the corporate world listening to this, and you do realize you’re a manager because, you know, it’s in your job description, I still want you to think about the three things I’m going to talk about today, because these are going to help you show up better for your team. Okay. So first things first, everybody listening is a manager. And now how do we show up the best for our teams? So the first thing I want you to think about is, you know, how do you show up as a manager?

How do you give feedback? How do you create an openness for people to come to you with feedback? What level of detail do you want to be in, in the weeds on projects? What makes you feel comfortable? What makes you feel informed? If you’re in the corporate world and you have a, you know, a lot of pressure from your leadership chain, you know, how do you need to feel like you’re in the know so that you can still delegate?

If you are a business owner and, you know, you’re just kind of finding your footing as a manager, what are some of the things that you want your team to know about you so that you have more, you know, you’re more comfortable with the whole thing? A lot of times we become a manager and we haven’t even thought about it at all, right? Maybe we have mentored or coached people in the past, or we’re really passionate about developing people.

And we, you know, we are interested in it, but we haven’t thought about what it really means to us. And I think by setting an intention and thinking about some of those managers in the past that have been really inspiring to you, maybe it was a coach, maybe it was a teacher, people that really helped you realize how to be at your best, thinking about those qualities and what you want to bring into managing others, this is going to help you approach it with that intentionality.

Sometimes we think about the worst qualities in managers and the things we don’t want to do. In a lot of my early interviews on this show, I asked people, you know, which had a bigger impact on you, you know, your best manager and your worst. And it was pretty split. You know, I thought most people would say the worst manager, but it was pretty split. But sometimes it is those lessons of, oh, I don’t want to do that.

I really want to make sure I don’t do that. And for me, having had micromanagers in the past, and it really frustrates me because I was a 10Xer in the corporate world, just crushing it. And when I had a micromanager, it was like, hello, like you don’t need to micromanage me. So that was really, really frustrating. Now, as I’m managing folks, as a business owner, being really intentional and saying, gosh, I know I am very detail oriented.

I like stuff a certain way, but I know how demoralizing it is to have a micromanager. I am going to do everything I can to make sure I don’t fall into that trap. So that’s what I mean about setting the intention. We have to think about it first so that we’re not on autopilot. And then we wake up one day and we’re like, hey, how come nobody wants to work for me? It’s because I became my own worst nightmare as a manager.

OK, so that’s the first one. And again, if you’re a manager in the corporate world, this is something that I want you to think about all of the time. OK, it’s not just for small business owners, although small business owners, we definitely got to think about it, is how do I want to show up for my team? If you go from a small team to a larger team, this might change. If you bring in managers so that you’re in your managing managers, this intention might change.

So we always want to be thinking about how do I want to show up best for my team? What are those great qualities I really want to be embodying? And what are some of those ones I want to be staying away from? Second thing to think about is how do I want to be spending my time? And really, what is the appropriate thing I should be spending my time on? Now, I talk about this a lot when it comes to things like delegating and avoiding micromanaging, because this is one of those things, again, when we’re on autopilot, this can just get out of control real fast.

So when we’re thinking about now I’m in this identity, I am a manager, I think, well, what makes sense for me to be doing versus offloading to a team member? What are the kinds of roles that I’ve hired? What are the kinds of responsibilities that I want to be hiring for? What is my highest and best use? Where am I in my zone of genius? Where am I able to bring in the most business for my company?

So let’s say I deliver services, like I’m a coach or consultant. My time is better spent on working with my high-paying clients than being in the weeds of a Google doc copyediting someone’s email. That’s not necessarily the right focus. And so thinking about before you even hire, what am I supposed to be focusing on for the next six months? What do I need to be doing? Where should I be that really helps position to be growing my business?

And then figure out who you need to be hiring for that and what level of detail, again, you want to be in the weeds for that. That’s going to help you approach, manage your team with intention. That allows you to set expectations more clearly. It allows you to delegate better. And it allows you to, whenever you bring folks onto your team, they can hit the ground running because you’re not like just figuring out, well, I don’t even know what I should be spending my time on.

And if that’s how you’re feeling, hey, we all get in that place. No judgment. I think a lot of us, we can focus on the areas that are comfortable for us that we enjoy as a manager. I mean, I think a lot of times the things that really are working in the business, not on the business or that we feel more comfortable in, maybe it’s organizing files or creating some graphics or things like that. I know I actually enjoy a lot of that more tactical work.

And I have to be really intentional about what I should not necessarily be doing. And that can be hard to pull away from. But when you’re trying to scale yourself and you’re trying to empower other people as team members, that’s the kind of stuff that we got to let go of. As a business owner, when I have a lot on my mind, there is nothing more helpful than having a checklist and nothing more gratifying than crossing things off that list.

And as the leader of your team and company, it might feel like the list of things you have to remember to do to be a good manager gets longer every day. That’s why I created my thriving team checklist, including 10 things you can do this week and every week to show up better for your team. Get in the rhythm of completing these things every week and you will find that not only is your team performing better, your job is getting easier in the process.

It’s the ultimate win-win. Grab your copy today at leahgarvin.com checklist. So thinking about what that looks like and that’s going to really help you set up your team for success. And if you’re struggling with that piece, I think a lot of us are on the time management, on really what should I be focusing on? You know, when is the right moment to hire? Schedule an SOS call. So head to leahgarvin.com slash SOS. And in this conversation, this is a perfect thing to dive into over an hour call where we just look at, well, how are you spending your time?

What are the things, places you’re getting stuck? Where is your team really at? What are things you could offload? What are things maybe you need to bring on a, you know, a VA or like temporary person for five hours a week to support? This is going to be really helpful. But I think a lot of times we stay stuck doing that stuff because we’re not sure if we can hire or not because we actually haven’t figured out what we should be doing.

So it’s a perfect thing to talk about in an SOS call. Third thing to think about as a manager is what support do you need to show up as your best? And this is another thing I think a lot of us don’t ask ourselves is what actually, do I need a coach? Do I need to read some books? Do I want to go to a training? If you built a business and started hiring folks and haven’t had experience as a manager or you’re in a bigger company and you inherited a team and you haven’t gotten a lot of support, this, it is in you and your team’s best interest that you ask for support or invest in it on your own.

You know, this podcast is a place where I try to provide tons of tools and strategies and actionable things that you can try. This is an example of like, hey, listening to a podcast, reading a book, reaching out, scheduling that SOS call, getting some coaching, finding a mentor. Because, you know, you can manage people for a very long time and sort of like tape it together and figure some stuff out. But a lot of times it’s at the expense of your team and they are experiencing some of the worst sides of us because we’re just getting our footing and figuring it out.

And we don’t have to do that. Because what happens is you have high turnover. You’ve spent a lot of time on hiring. You’re maybe realizing, yeah, I am showing up like a micromanager. I didn’t even want to do that. You might lose some 10 Xers and A players that could have really elevated your business or team and took it to the next level. But they were in that moment where you were just kind of wrestling with figuring out what you were doing.

And I always find it so surprising that, I guess it’s like with parenting too, right? Like you have to have a license to buy alcohol, but you can have a kid like however you, you know, with no experience in training. It’s very similar with managing, right? Like a lot of times we just inherit a team. We’re responsible for people’s careers or we can hire anybody, right? Without any sort of, you know, parameters. And now someone’s really relying on us to be looking out for their career and their growth and their financial livelihood.

And we’re like, oh, I didn’t realize I had that, all that responsibility. And I don’t say that to scare you. I say, hey, this is why it shouldn’t be, feel like a loss or a failure or embarrassing or whatever, something you don’t want to invest in to get support. This is like the first place we want to be investing in to get support because other people are relying on us. And when we show up for them, that’s when we can 10 X our own business.

That’s where we can scale to new heights we never thought possible. This is how we get to where we want to be by recognizing, hey, where am I really good at things? Where do I need some help? Hey, managing’s new to me. I just want to kind of talk about where I’m getting stuck. I want to talk about what’s hard about it. I want to figure out how I want to show up as a manager. Some of these questions, when you have a sounding board, again, whether it’s a mentor or a coach or a consultant, whatever it is, someone to really help you figure that out, this is going to collapse time on that growth period.

Okay, maybe you’ve been managing people for 10 years and you’re like, shit keeps going wrong. I don’t want to be that way anymore. I want to approach this in a new way. So it’s not just for new managers. We are entering a time where there’s so much change, right? We have Gen Z in the workforce. We’ve like maybe four generations in the workforce, right? I don’t know, four or five. We have so much economic uncertainty. We have return to office.

We have hybrid, we have distributed teams. We have all of this going on. That’s making managing harder. So like this is the time to get support because you don’t have to muscle through and figure out alone. So again, that might look like you’re working with me on the Ops Playbook to map this stuff out, get some support for your team. It might look like an SOS call. It might look like going to a course, taking your team with you somewhere, whatever it is.

But don’t shy away from getting that support because again, you don’t want your team members to be the learning curve that you’re figuring out how to be a manager. But again, when you do these three things I talked about today, thinking about, well, how do you want to show up? What is your kind of philosophy for being a manager? The things you want to do and the things you want to stay away from. We want to think about what we want to be spending our time on.

And then we want to figure out, okay, given these things, what support do I need to really be at my best for my team? When we do these three things, now we are going to be probably better manager than 90% of folks out there that haven’t thought about any of these things. And it starts to help you slow down and remember, hey, I do have a responsibility as a manager. I’m not just running a business. I also have these people that I’m trying to get their best out of them, right?

Without burning them out. I want to have employees that want to work here, that want to stay here, that want to do their best work. And when people see that you’re invested in your own growth as a leader, they also start showing up better for you. So I think there’s some modeling and signaling here too that’s really powerful and saying, hey, I brought in this consultant to help us kind of figure out how to manage this team because I want everything to be easier and more clear.

And that’s really what we talk about with the Ops Playbook when we roll it out is like making sure the team knows this is for all of you. When I do manager training, it’s the same thing. We talk about, hey, how do we make this thing that’s complicated a little bit easier so that everybody can benefit from it? When business owners share with their team members, hey, I’m working with a coach on my leadership skills and on making sure I’m really set up for success to grow this business, your team members, they feel appreciative of that, that you’re working on yourself so that they also can have a long career here.

So it also doesn’t have to be something that you’re keeping a secret or not telling anybody about or doing in the background. I think when we show our team members that we are growing and investing in the bettering of this business in their benefit, they’re also on board and they also cut us some slack. I think I’ve mentioned before, sharing the feedback that, or asking for feedback from your team members by sharing things that you’re actively working on.

And this is something that really builds a ton of trust. So let’s say you realized in how you want to be spending your time that you’ve actually been a little bit too, hands in too many pies when it comes to certain kinds of tasks. Saying to a team member that’s over in that space saying, you know, I’m really working on delegating in this space and I can see myself falling into that trap. I’d love for you to give some feedback when you notice me getting a little bit too in the weeds, just flag it and I’ll take a step back.

Help me help you, right? And this shows our team members that you realize you’re not infallible, you have humility, that you’re open to feedback. So it makes feedback conversations easier and it makes the whole thing so much better for everyone. All right, so again, spoiler, if you have a team, you are a manager. So if you’re a business owner with a team or you’re a corporate employee with a team or whatever it is, you’re a manager.

And that’s not something to shy away from, that’s something to lean into and celebrate and figure out how do I want to be my best for my team? Because they always say it, we all know it, people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. So let’s be the exception, not the rule. Let’s be managers that people want to work for, that people want to do their best work for, okay? Because it’s out there, you can do that, that is all in your control.

And if you need support, you know where to go, liagarva.com slash SOS. If you want a quick hour session to kind of crank through some of this stuff, if you want to bring the Ops Playbook to your team, liagarva.com, you can learn more about it there. And if you need support ever, just reach out to me directly, I always want to talk and hear more. Talk soon. That’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.

With that said, let’s spread the word. If you love this episode, please pass it along to someone who might benefit from it. See you next time.