“It felt like you were in my head.”
That’s what a CEO said to me recently when we jumped on a call.
She’d reached out after reading one of my emails where I’d asked a few questions:
- Do you ever feel like the bottleneck in your own business?
- Do things keep landing on your desk that should never get to you?
- How many of my managers have been trained how to manage and are actually getting great results? Or are they the ones doing all the work?
When we spoke, she told me: “Every single one of those questions I answered yes to. It felt like you were in my head.”
The truth about these problems
If you’re nodding along to those questions too, clearly you’re not alone.
I could walk into 9 out of 10 mid-sized businesses today and find the same patterns:
- Executives dragged back into decisions that should never reach them
- Managers defaulting to doing instead of empowering their team to execute
- Teams working harder but not making real progress
It feels personal when you’re in it. But it’s universal.
And the good news is that it’s fixable.
Why strategy tweaks won’t help
Most executives misdiagnose the problem.
They assume it’s a strategy issue → so they rewrite the plan
They assume it’s a systems issue → so they buy new tools
They assume it’s a capacity issue → so they add headcount
But execution doesn’t stall because of strategy, systems, or headcount
Execution stalls because managers don’t know how to manage… they were never trained to.
Which means they:
- Push decisions up instead of solving them
- Avoid tough conversations so accountability disappears
- Burn energy on low-value work instead of building capability in their teams
And until that changes, nothing changes.
Ask yourself these 4 questions:
- How many decisions landed on my desk last week that should have been solved by my managers?
- When was the last time one of my managers had a tough performance conversation without me needing to get involved?
- Do our meetings end with clear outcomes, or do the same issues roll forward every week?
- Are my managers coaching and developing their people, or just doing the work themselves?
If you’re not happy with your answers to any of those questions, you have a manager problem.
The hidden cost
The impact isn’t abstract. It’s expensive. But it doesn’t always show up as a neat line item on your P&L. Instead, it shows up as:
- Creeping pressure
- Missed revenue targets
- You getting dragged back into the doing
- Your best people burning out and others disengaging
- Late nights, overtime, and longer hours – but no real progress
- Everyone looking exhausted, but the workload doesn’t justify it
- Projects that always seem to drift, no matter how clear the plan
- Innovation pipelines drying up because no one has the energy left to think
- Customer scores slipping despite investment in better products and services
I could keep going, but I think you get the point.
Gallup estimates disengaged employees cost businesses 34% of their salary in lost productivity. Turnover costs are 1.5–2.5x salary. And 70% of engagement comes down to the manager.
So when managers aren’t managing, it’s not just frustrating. It’s one of the most expensive problems in your business.
What happens when managers are equipped
The shift is immediate.
When managers know how to manage, three things happen fast:
Clarity: people know what matters and what’s expected
Accountability: deadlines and standards hold
Energy: teams stop wasting cognitive energy on rework, endless meetings, or firefighting, and instead they spend it on doing great work and getting great results
Execution accelerates. Teams perform. And you – as the CEO, business owner, director, senior exec… whatever your fancy title – finally get your time back!
The bottom line
That CEO said it felt like I was in her head. But the reality is, I could be in almost any executive’s head, because these problems are everywhere.
The difference is whether you keep living with them, or you choose to do something about them like she did.
You don’t need more strategy. You don’t need more systems. You don’t need more headcount.
You need managers who can manage. And once you fix that, everything else starts to work.
How I help you
Most consulting firms will sell you strategy tweaks. Or new systems. Or bigger resourcing models.
We don’t.
At Human Tribe, we fix the two root causes most executives (and other consultants) miss:
- Managers who don’t know how to manage
- Cognitive energy leaks that quietly destroy performance
We don’t fix strategy, systems, or headcount. We fix the managers and the energy leaks that undermine all three.
What you need to do
I’ve got just two spots left this year to work with executives who are ready to make that change. If that’s you, reach out now before someone else does.
If you’re not the decision-maker, forward this to the person who is. They need to understand that training managers isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a business necessity.
Here’s to managers who manage (and executives who finally get their time back),
Jess
