Trust is the root cause of most managing problems, from micromanaging to accountability gaps, and building it comes down to consistency and relationship building rather than waiting for people to prove themselves. Lia walks through how trust flows in both directions, why assuming competence is the starting point, and the specific behaviors that make trust grow faster. This episode is essential for new managers stepping into a team for the first time.
This episode is part of the The New Manager Playbook Series (book companion) series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“…the top two reasons that people become managers is one, tenure in their role. So they’ve been in their job for a long time or that they had past success in their role.”
“…you become a manager and you’re still an IC, like you still have your old job and you still have expectations of doing a lot of individual contributor work.”
“…you’re doing two jobs for the price of one.”
“…i want to bring down those walls, make it easier so that you can find out like, do I like this? Am I good at this? And you can practice those skills right away without learning them at the expense of your team.”
Episode highlights
The stat that stopped Lia in her tracks
While researching for the podcast, Lia came across data showing the top two reasons people become managers are tenure in their role and past success as an individual contributor. Neither reason is “I wanted to lead people” or “I have the skills to do it well.” That disconnect is the whole problem.
In most corporate companies, especially in big tech, becoming a manager is simply the default path to promotion. There is no parallel track for most people. So managers end up in the role not by choice but by circumstance, and then wonder why it feels so hard.
Doing two jobs for the price of one
Here is the other thing that makes managing brutal: most new managers never fully leave their old job. They are still expected to do individual contributor work while simultaneously leading, coaching, giving feedback, and developing their team’s careers. Two jobs, one salary, twice the stress.
Lia hears this constantly from middle managers in the corporate world. “Why would I become a manager? I’m not getting paid more. I just have twice the stress.” The appeal of management is eroding because no one is bringing down the barriers that make it so difficult.
What the book actually does
The New Manager Playbook is the guide Lia wished she had when she first stepped into a leadership role. It covers the goods, the bads, the highs, and the lows, and it pairs explanation with exercises so readers can actually practice the skills, not just read about them.
The goal is straightforward: remove the walls that make managing feel overwhelming so that leaders can figure out whether they enjoy it, get good at it fast, and stop learning these lessons at the expense of their team.
Where this book fits alongside the podcast and workshops
The podcast gives practical strategies every episode, but Lia realized there needed to be a tangible, written resource to pair with the show, with workshops, and with trainings. Something readers can return to, work through, and mark up. The book is that reference.
Lia was recording this episode from a Miami hotel room, hours before a live workshop with the FIFA organization. That context matters: the book is designed to complement exactly that kind of hands-on, custom work, giving teams a foundation they can build on whether they are working through it solo or alongside a facilitator.
The mission behind it all
Managing does not have to be stressful, exhausting, or a career you stumble into and endure. Lia’s goal with The New Manager Playbook is to make management something leaders can actually enjoy and be great at. The book launches January 27th.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 163: The New Manager Playbook is here: what’s inside and who it’s for. The New Manager Playbook gives overwhelmed managers a practical, action-oriented guide to leading with confidence and ease. Lia built it around the real struggles she heard repeatedly in workshops and coaching: managing former peers, never having enough time, and not knowing where to start. It is useful for first-time managers and experienced leaders alike, especially anyone stepping into a genuinely new situation.
- Ep 160: How to stop feeling squeezed from all sides as a middle manager. Middle managers feel pressure from every direction because they are caught between their team’s needs and leadership’s demands, with no playbook to guide them. The key move is setting a clear intention for how you want to show up as a leader, then building trust skill by skill so your team sees stability even while you are still learning. This episode is most useful for new and mid-career managers in corporate environments who feel like they are winging it.
- Ep 156: How people pleasing costs you respect as a manager (and what to do instead). Wanting your team to like you is human, but leaning on it too hard makes hard conversations impossible and quietly erodes your credibility. In The New Manager Playbook, Lia Garvin unpacks the people-pleasing trap and shows how building trust through honest, expectations-driven relationships earns you more genuine respect than being everyone’s friend ever could. This episode is especially useful for new managers who default to being fun and casual and then feel stuck when things need to get serious.
- Ep 154: The secret to building trust with your team as a new manager. Trust is the root cause of most managing problems, from micromanaging to accountability gaps, and building it comes down to consistency and relationship building rather than waiting for people to prove themselves. Lia walks through how trust flows in both directions, why assuming competence is the starting point, and the specific behaviors that make trust grow faster. This episode is essential for new managers stepping into a team for the first time.
Want to go deeper?
The New Manager Playbook. Lia’s bestselling guide to leading a team for the first time.
Full transcript (click to expand)
Welcome back to the show. So my new book, The New Manager Playbook, comes out on January 27th, and I could not be more excited for the launch. This book really was born out of a need, folks asking me, you know, what resources do you have for a new manager? What tools do you have? How can I give something really kind of simple, easy to apply, really tangible and relatable? Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where you get a masterclass in managing your team with ease in 15 minutes or less.
I’m Lia Garvin, your host and team operations consultant. Through this show and my programs with small businesses and corporate teams, I condense a decade of experience driving team operations in some of the most influential companies in tech into strategies to save you time, money, most of all stress. 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. Are a new manager learning 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. I wanted to put together the guide I would have wanted when I first started as a manager. Something that talks about the goods, the bads, the highs, the lows, and gives a ton of exercises and tools to just help us practice.
So that is what it is, the new manager playbook. It comes out January 27th and I could not be more excited. It’s also super exciting today because I’m coming at you from Miami, from my hotel room where later this afternoon I’m going to be doing a workshop with the FIFA organization. And this is so awesome. So a listener of the show who was an HR leader at FIFA reached out to inquire about how I could bring some content to some of her teams.
And you know, this is really where the magic happens. I know folks listening to this show, there’s a ton of stuff that I talk about, tools and different practical strategies, but you know, really being able to translate that and bring it to you in person, that’s really the sweet spot. And so if you’re listening to the show thinking like, hey, I could use some hands-on support for my team, reach out because I love coming in person.
We dial it in super, super custom so that it’s as relatable and actionable as it can be for your specific team and company because everything has its own nuances. And then we just roll up our sleeves and we work through it. I love doing work in person with teams. I love doing virtually too, but you know, in person is really a fun option that can help bring people together and really put some currency in that relationship bank.
So again, if you’re listening, you’re like, oh wait, I want to bring you in, then reach out. Hello at leaguearver.com and let’s do it. All right. So, you know, today I want to talk about, well, why did I write this book in the first place? You know, I mentioned that there was a lot of, you know, people were asking me for some resources and for tools, but it was also came from a lot of the research that I was doing and articles I was reading as I was preparing for things like putting together this podcast.
And I saw a stat that just kind of stopped me in my tracks. And that was that the top two reasons that people become managers is one, tenure in their role. So they’ve been in their job for a long time or that they had past success in their role. Well, that’s great. You know, that you were in a job a long time where you were crushing it as an IC, but neither of those were that they wanted to be a manager, were good at it, had any interest in it and, and had the tools to be effective as a manager.
And I was like, gosh, like that’s really sad because a lot of us become managers because that is the path that we are shown in, you know, in a corporate company. I know that for me working in big tech, really the path for advancement, unless you were some like engineering genius, was to become a manager and amass people under you and grow a team and build a team and be a leader of a team. There really was not a lot of options outside of that.
And so you just become a manager in a lot of our companies because that’s the only route to promotion and to growing your career. But that doesn’t mean that we wanted to or are going to be good at it. The way that we get good at it is actually learning the skills and practicing them. And so that really was the biggest reason why I said, okay, I can’t just do the podcast. I got to put pen to paper.
I have to give a tangible resource that, you know, that can pair with workshops and trainings and with the show, because there has to be some reference that we look back at where we can really practice these things. Now, the other thing that kind of stopped, you know, I had been wrestling with and thinking about, you know, what does it mean to be a manager and why is it so hard? Well, it’s because for a lot of us, I know for my case especially, you become a manager and you’re still an IC, like you still have your old job and you still have expectations of doing a lot of individual contributor work.
Meanwhile, you have taken on the job of leading people and managing team and coaching them and developing their careers and giving them feedback and growing them. And so you’re doing two jobs for the price of one. And that kind of thing, I just got to tell you, is becoming more and more unappealing, less and less appealing for managers out there. And something I’m hearing so often from middle managers, especially in the corporate world, is why in the world would I become a manager?
I’m not getting paid more. I just have twice the stress with there’s no reason. There’s nothing in it for me. And so I really want to kind of bring us back to what is in it for you. Why do we do this? And the biggest way to do that is to bring down the barriers that make it so hard. Because I think a lot of us think about managing and we think, oh, it means mentoring and coaching and developing people.
And we forget about all the hard stuff that goes into it. And so then we’re faced with all the hard stuff. We’re like, I didn’t sign up for this, right? And so with this book, The New Manager Playbook, I want to bring down those walls, make it easier so that you can find out like, do I like this? Am I good at this? And you can practice those skills right away without learning them at the expense of your team.
Okay, so again, I’m going to be talking about the book and then weeks leading up to it and just giving you kind of little tastes and insights into what it’s all about. Because my goal is this becomes your go-to resource that says, gosh, managing doesn’t have to be so stressful, so hard. It doesn’t have to burn me out. I can actually enjoy this and I can be pretty great at it. All right. Book comes out January 27th and I cannot wait to share more with you.
See you next time. 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.
Questions this episode answers
Why do so many new managers struggle even when they were great at their job?
The top two reasons people become managers are tenure and past success as an individual contributor. Neither of those means they wanted to manage, had any interest in it, or had the skills to do it well. Being great at your job doesn't automatically make you great at leading people. The way you actually get good at managing is by learning the specific skills and practicing them, and most new managers never get that structured support before they're already responsible for a team.
Why is being a middle manager so exhausting right now?
A huge part of the problem is that most managers are still doing their old individual contributor work on top of leading people. You're coaching, giving feedback, developing careers, and running a team, all while your original job expectations haven't gone away. That's two jobs for the price of one. It's no surprise so many middle managers are asking why they'd ever take on that role when the pay doesn't reflect it and the stress doubles.
What is The New Manager Playbook and who is it for?
The New Manager Playbook is a practical guide written for anyone stepping into a management role or trying to get better at leading people. It covers the highs and lows of managing honestly, and includes exercises and tools so you can actually practice the skills, not just read about them. The goal is to make managing feel less overwhelming so you can figure out whether you enjoy it, get good at it faster, and stop learning those lessons at your team's expense.
Why do people become managers if they never really wanted to manage?
In a lot of corporate environments, becoming a manager is the only clear path to promotion and career growth. Unless you're a specialist in a technical field, moving up often means taking on direct reports and building a team. So people become managers not because they chose it, but because it was the route in front of them. That's a big reason so many leaders end up underprepared and frustrated once the reality of the role sets in.
How can I actually enjoy managing instead of just surviving it?
The key is bringing down the barriers that make managing feel so hard in the first place. A lot of people go into it thinking it's mostly mentoring and coaching, then get blindsided by the difficult conversations, the feedback, the conflict. When you have real tools and practice reps before those moments hit, managing starts to feel like something you can actually be good at. The goal isn't just to get through it; it's to build the skills so you can genuinely find out if this is something you want and enjoy.