You have a leadership question burning a hole in your brain, but you don’t know which episode to listen to. Or you heard Lia mention a book launch and want the full conversation. Or you just want to drop into a raw, unscripted AMA and hear real questions from real leaders getting answered in real time. This is the page for all of that. Lia’s special collection episodes, including AMAs, Trendsday roundups, book launch features, and the show trailer, are gathered here so you can find the format that fits how you learn best.
What makes AMA and Q&A episodes different
Most podcast episodes start with a plan. AMAs don’t. Lia’s Ask Me Anything episodes are built around questions submitted by real listeners, which means the topics jump from delegation to burnout to difficult team members to salary conversations, sometimes all in one episode. That unpredictability is the point. Real leadership isn’t tidy. Your week doesn’t follow a curriculum, and neither do these episodes. If you want to hear how Lia thinks on her feet about the exact situations leaders are actually in, these are the episodes to cue up.
Why Trendsday episodes belong in this collection
The Trendsday format gives Lia a chance to react to what is actually happening in the workplace right now. Quiet quitting, return-to-office mandates, AI replacing roles, the rise of fractional leadership, whatever the moment demands. These episodes are less about timeless frameworks and more about helping you make sense of what is swirling around you so you can lead with clarity instead of panic. They sit in this special collection because they don’t fit neatly into a single topic cluster. They fit into the moment you’re in.
Book launch episodes and the conversations behind the ideas
When a book comes out in the leadership space, there’s a story behind it that the Amazon listing never tells you. Lia’s book launch episodes pull back the curtain on how ideas become frameworks and how frameworks become published work. Whether Lia is celebrating her own release or hosting a conversation with another author, these episodes go deeper than a summary. They get into the why behind the work and what the author actually wants leaders to do differently tomorrow morning.
How to use these episodes if you’re short on time
If you have 20 minutes and a specific problem, search the main episode library by topic. But if you have a commute, a dog walk, or a Saturday morning run and you want something that feels less like a lesson and more like a conversation with someone who gets it, this is your collection. Start with the show trailer if you’re brand new. Drop into a Trendsday episode if you want to process something that happened this week. Pull up an AMA if you want to hear your question answered even if you never submitted it, because odds are someone else already did.
The thread that runs through all of it
Every format in this collection, whether scripted or spontaneous, comes back to the same locked thesis Lia builds everything around: most leadership problems are not people problems. They are system problems. The team isn’t broken. You aren’t broken. Something is missing, and usually it’s a clear process, a shared expectation, or a conversation that never happened. Even in the most off-the-cuff AMA, that lens shows up. Because once you start seeing management problems as system problems, the questions you ask change entirely and so do the answers you get.
All episodes on this topic
- Ep 121: What is quiet vacationing and how do you stop it from happening on your team?. Quiet vacationing is when employees take time off without formally notifying anyone or fully disconnecting, quietly dialing in from wherever they happen to be. Lia breaks down why it happens and how clear working norms, honest conversations about expectations, and honoring real time off are the fix. This episode is especially useful for founders, owners, and team leads managing remote or hybrid teams.
- Ep 105: What is The Unstoppable Team and how will it help you manage with less stress. The Unstoppable Team is Lia Garvin’s book that gives owners, founders, and team leaders the practical “how” behind managing a team without overwhelm. It distills the six pillars of her Ops Playbook program (priorities, onboarding, expectations, delegation, work tracking, and performance) into a hands-on companion you can implement right away. This episode is most useful for anyone who has the vision and the strategy but keeps getting stuck on execution.
- Ep 39: Venting vs. needing help, unmet expectations, and manager thrash: three real questions answered. When a team member comes to you with a problem, the single most useful thing you can do before taking any action is ask what they actually need from you. Lia walks through three frameworks: distinguishing venting from a real ask for help, resetting expectations before escalating a performance issue, and rebuilding trust after inheriting a team burned by manager turnover. This episode is especially useful for leaders who feel the urge to immediately jump in and solve every problem their team brings them.
- Ep 15: How to handle difficult team members, manage up, and know when to coach versus direct. When a team member disagrees with everything, the move is to ask open-ended “what” questions that shift them from defense to possibility, not to label them difficult. For managing up, set explicit expectations with your leadership chain so you can delegate without slipping into micromanagement. This AMA episode is especially useful for newer leaders navigating pressure from above and resistance from below at the same time.
- Ep 0: What is Managing Made Simple and who is it for?. Managing Made Simple is a podcast for people managers who feel stuck, overwhelmed, or just want to lead their teams better. Lia Garvin covers the real, messy questions every manager faces, from running better one-on-ones to giving hard feedback to escaping the micromanagement trap. If you are a manager who cares enough to show up and keep getting better, this podcast is for you.
Also relevant
- 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.
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