Practical advice for managing teams

When you jump in and solve problems for your team members, you rob them of the chance to learn, build confidence, and bring their own creative ideas. Instead of offering answers, Lia recommends switching to a coaching posture by asking open-ended questions that keep the problem-solving in your team member’s court. This episode is especially useful for managers who pride themselves on being fixers and want to build a more self-sufficient team.

When a team member is visibly unhappy, you have two paths: fix what is making the role not work for them, or support them in finding their next thing. Lia walks through a coaching-question framework to diagnose which path is right before jumping to conclusions. This episode is especially useful for owners and team leads managing small teams where one disengaged person carries outsized weight.

Keeping your team engaged starts with leading with empathy, connecting people to a clear sense of purpose, and making personal development a real part of the job. Rachel Smith, Director of Strategy and Operations at Google, shares practical tools including skip-level meetings, the 10-10-10 decision framework, and intentional connection rituals that help managers build trust and fuel performance. This episode is especially useful for managers of managers and anyone leading distributed or hybrid teams.

Inclusion happens in how you work, not at the pizza party. Lia shares three concrete foundations every leader must build first: equal access to information and decisions, psychological safety to take risks, and recognition of all kinds of work on the team. This episode is essential for any manager, founder, or business owner who wants inclusion to be woven into how the team actually operates.

When your team seems checked out, the fix is connecting each person to why their role actually matters, not just repeating company vision. Lia calls this the shift from the ‘what’ to the ‘so what,’ a dot-connecting conversation that reframes tactical work as genuinely critical contribution. This episode is especially useful for owners and leaders who sense disengagement before anyone has handed in notice.

Strong remote team culture comes from closing the gap between what you say and what you actually do as a leader. Audrey Saccone, founder and CEO of Audrey Digital, shares the specific rituals and moves she uses to build psychological safety, create belonging across a distributed team, and know when to let go of control. This episode is especially useful for small business owners who are growing a remote team for the first time.

The single biggest differentiator between high-performing teams and struggling ones is whether people embrace an ownership mindset, treating accountability as something to be excited about rather than feared. Lia shares three concrete moves to build that mindset: ask for input before decisions, give people freedom to own the how, and reward ownership behaviors explicitly. This episode is especially useful for leaders who feel like they are the only ones rolling up their sleeves.

Giving feedback to someone senior to you is possible when you frame it around their interests, stay proactive, and make a clear ask. Lia walks through her 5-step framework using the Situation-Behavior-Impact method as the backbone. This episode is especially useful for managers caught between an unhappy team and a difficult boss.

Storytelling is the antidote to disengaged teams: when people understand the story of where you are and where you are going, they stop asking “why” and start buying in. Alex Street, Storytelling Coach, walks through how to build that narrative, share just enough vulnerability to create psychological safety, and give every team member a shared language they can carry into their own conversations. This episode is essential for any leader who wants to motivate their team, reduce quiet quitting, and communicate with real influence.

Positive feedback works when it is specific, tied to a career goal, and delivered with acknowledgement rather than a generic “good job.” Lia walks through the SBI framework (Situation, Behavior, Impact) and the coaching skill of acknowledgement to make praise land with real impact. This episode is especially useful for leaders who want to reduce team disengagement and rebuild a healthier relationship with feedback overall.