Quiet cracking is when your highest performers stop bringing their best energy, not because they want to slack off, but because they are burned out, spread thin, and running on empty. Lia walks through how to spot it, why it ripples through your whole team culture, and three foundational moves to reverse it before you lose your best people. This episode is especially useful for owners, founders, and team leads who have noticed their most reliable people quietly stepping back.
This episode is part of the Retention & Why Top Performers Leave series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“…people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. We know that managers are the single biggest factor responsible for someone leaving a company. They’re the cause of high turnover.”
“The only thing we ever have control over is how we show up for our teams, us, right?”
“Trust is built by you showing up that same way on Thursday that you did on Monday, that you continue to embody these qualities, these attributes, whatever is happening externally.”
“…people are so much more resilient when there’s flat raises or bonuses or promotions or project cancellations or reorgs or all these things. People can withstand a lot more than you might expect…”
“…you first and foremost get you straightened out. You get you figured out. You figure out what does that even mean? How do you want to show up?”
Episode highlights
If managers cause people to leave, they can also make people stay
The familiar quote is that people leave managers, not companies. Lia flips it: if that is true, then managers are also the most powerful retention tool on any team. The question is not whether you have the best perks or the biggest bonus budget. The question is whether you are a manager people actually want to work for. That requires intentionality, not just good vibes.
What being a manager people want to work for actually produces
High retention is the headline, but it is not the only outcome. When people trust their manager, you get psychological safety, which means people speak up, share ideas, and take creative risks. You get resilience when hard news lands. You get an A-player culture that does not need constant propping up. These are not soft benefits. They are the direct result of consistent, trustworthy leadership.
The one thing you actually control
Lia hears it constantly: employees are burned out, entitled, unmotivated, complaining. Her answer is direct. You have no control over any of that. The only thing you ever control is how you show up. That is the whole topic. Everything else is noise.
Intention is a plan, but consistency is what builds trust
Setting a leadership intention means deciding what kind of leader you are going to be, transparent, compassionate, direct, and then mapping out what that looks like in practice. But the plan is not what earns trust. Trust is built by showing up that same way on Thursday that you did on Monday, regardless of what is happening externally. People stay with managers they can predict. They leave the ones who turn into someone different under pressure.
The reorg story: why inconsistency breaks trust faster than bad news
Lia shares a story from her own career. Her manager, someone known for being transparent and looping her in, sent her an email one morning to kick off a big new project. An hour later, a company-wide reorg email landed and the entire effort became irrelevant. The reorg itself was survivable. What broke trust was the inconsistency. Her manager had sent her down a path knowing it was pointless. That one moment of being out of character was enough to make Lia wonder whether she could rely on that manager at all. The lesson: your team can handle a project cancellation, a flat raise, a reorg. What they cannot handle is a manager they no longer recognize.
How to stay consistent when your values are being tested
The real challenge is not showing up well when things are easy. It is figuring out in advance what you will do when you are personally at odds with your own values. If transparency is your thing and you are sitting on information you cannot share, the answer is not to go dark, cancel your one-on-ones, and stop communicating. The answer is to keep showing up in every other way that reflects who you are, and to use leadership discernment about what actions are actually necessary right now. Spinning someone up on a project an hour before a reorg is not necessary. Staying present and available is.
Do the exercise before the worst case scenario arrives
Lia closes with a concrete next step, an exercise from Chapter 2 of The New Manager Playbook. Write down the qualities you want to embody as a leader. Then ask yourself: what would I do on my worst day? What would I do if I had information I could not share? What would I do if my team was complaining nonstop? You cannot lead consistently in a crisis you have not thought through. The managers who keep their best people are the ones who have already answered these questions before the storm hits.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 236: What to do when an employee tells you they’re thinking of leaving. When a team member gives you advance notice they may leave, the worst move is writing them off. Lia walks through The Sit Down, a re-engagement conversation that keeps great people invested longer, and explains how to handle the raise or promotion ask that sometimes comes with it. This episode is for any owner, founder, or team lead who wants to stop being blindsided by departures.
- Ep 203: Why top performers leave and the career conversation that keeps them. Top performers leave because they cannot see a future on your team, not because the job was bad. The fix is a regular career conversation, separate from performance reviews, where you ask about bigger-picture goals and then follow up with real opportunities. This episode is most useful for founders, owners, and team leads who want to stop losing good people before the resignation letter arrives.
- Ep 195: What Gen Z actually wants at work (and how to make them want to stay). Gen Z is not disengaged because they are lazy. They are navigating a flooded job market, economic instability, and workplaces that treat them like numbers instead of people. The fix is simpler than most leaders expect: get to know your team one on one, build real human connection, and make people feel seen from day one. This episode is essential for any owner or leader who keeps asking why their best hires do not stick around.
- Ep 193: Why Your A-Players Are Pulling Back (and How to Stop It Before It Spreads). Quiet cracking is when your highest performers stop bringing their best energy, not because they want to slack off, but because they are burned out, spread thin, and running on empty. Lia walks through how to spot it, why it ripples through your whole team culture, and three foundational moves to reverse it before you lose your best people. This episode is especially useful for owners, founders, and team leads who have noticed their most reliable people quietly stepping back.
Want to go deeper?
The Unstoppable Team. How to build a team that runs without you in the room.
Full transcript (click to expand)
We’ve all heard the quote, people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. We know that managers are the single biggest factor responsible for someone leaving a company. They’re the cause of high turnover. Well, then it would reason that managers could be the reason people stay. They could be the leading cause of retention, especially in a moment where maybe we don’t have backfills or we really can’t afford to take the foot off the gas to be doing interviews and be doing recruiting and things like that.
What if we were managers that made people want to stay? And I’ve been thinking about this question so much, not only because my signature keynote that I just delivered at South by Southwest Sydney is called how to be a manager people want to work for, but because it’s true, right? Like if the manager is the reason people leave, then why aren’t we the reason people stay? Well, we can be, but we have to do that with intentionality.
I’ve also been thinking about this lately because I’ve been working a lot with managers of managers, folks that need to inspire people that are at the front lines on how to keep people motivated to be a leader that people want to work for. We all have to first start by anchoring into an intention of what that even means. I’m Leah Garvin, and this is the new manager playbook podcast where I’m on a mission to make managing your team the easiest part of your job.
So today let’s make it easier by talking about how to be a manager people want to work for. Now, what happens when you’re a manager people want to work for? We already said the biggest one, you have high retention. You don’t have that revolving door of turnover. You don’t have your A players leaving to go work for a competitor. You don’t have, you know, constantly trying to uplift the culture because everyone’s moping and feeling like frustrated.
You have more resilience. When you’re a manager people want to work for, you have this energy and enthusiasm that’s infectious, right? This is where you’re building a culture where people are feeling safe to make mistakes, right? Psych safety. People speak up. They’re sharing ideas. They’re thinking out of the box. You’ve got innovation. This is the byproduct of that. We all want that, right? And when I say it’s like, yeah, yeah, cool, but like how do we get there?
Everyone’s frustrated. They’re worried about layoffs. They’re worried about AI and automation. They are feeling unmotivated. They’re burning out. They don’t want to do this. They don’t want to do that. They’re entitled. I hear all the problems with your employees. When I talk about what’s on the other side, it’s like, yeah, well, that’s impossible because my employees are this, that, and the other. They’re complaining. They don’t want to work as hard. They don’t this. I just hear what’s not happening, right?
Well, it’s not really, we have no control over if your employees are feeling entitled or if they don’t want to do this and that, right? We should definitely seek out to understand them and what’s going on. But what do we have control over? I’ll wait. We have control over ourselves. The only thing we ever have control over is how we show up for our teams, us, right? And so this is the topic. I spoke to a leadership team at Google actually just yesterday, team of directors and VPs about, you know, how to be leaders people want to work for how to show up and lead effectively during these wild, unprecedented, uncertain transformational times.
And one question that came up, which really kind of sparked the idea for talking about on this show was I posed the question, you know, let’s think about what’s the intention we want to set as a leader. This is the first exercise I have in the new manager playbook book. If you’ve read it, you’re familiar. I asked the question, Hey, how do we want to show up as a leader? Do you want to be transparent and direct, compassionate?
What are these qualities of leaders that you embody? And I opposed this to the group. And then I asked the second question, you know, well, it’s not just about figuring out what that intention is. It’s what do you need to adjust about how you’re showing up when things are difficult, right? When it’s hard, where do you actually start kind of not really embodying that intention? And what do you need to adjust to kind of keep showing up in that way?
And the senior engineering director raised her hand. She said, you know, kind of everything’s hard right now. Like, I don’t like, how do we frame this question? And I realized there was a nuance there. It’s not like when times are tough, how do you show up in the way that you want to as a leader? It’s when you are personally feeling in a conflict, or it’s a challenge for you to uphold this behavior or quality. Let me explain.
Let’s say we want to be a leader who’s transparent and open. And I’m always there sharing everything I can with my team. That’s the way that we want to show up for our teams. We really respect when leaders are that way. We’ve always appreciated that. And that is us at our core. Value is transparency. This is me. And then because you’re a senior leader, you know that a project might be canceled or a reorg is coming, or there’s going to be some scale backs with staff.
And now you have all of this information that you can’t share with your team. So for you personally, yeah, that’s difficult times for sure. But this is difficult. You are at odds with this value of transparency. This is when we are called to the test as leaders. This is when we embody being a leader people want to work for, or we let it go completely. Now, why do I talk about intention? And then I’m going to tell you how to solve this one.
Intention is a plan of action. You are deciding you will be doing something, right? So we don’t just think like, oh, it’d be nice if we’re saying I am going to show up this way. So you’re setting an intention. You are deciding this is my plan. And then you think about, okay, what does that look like? I’m going to do this and that and answer questions this way and give feedback in this way. Now I have kind of the backing of the plan.
Well, this isn’t the piece that builds trust. Trust is built by you showing up that same way on Thursday that you did on Monday, that you continue to embody these qualities, these attributes, whatever is happening externally. That is the piece that builds the trust, that leads you to being that leader people want to work for. Because people want to work for you means they trust you, right? They feel safe with you. They feel they can predict what you’re going to do.
It’s not a Jekyll or Hyde situation. So we go back to that example when the senior director asked, hey, you know, what about when times are difficult? And I said, well, let’s think about let’s transparency, you know, see, for example. Okay. So now you can’t be transparent with everything. Do you cancel your one-on-ones? Do you cancel your team meetings? Do you kind of take a step back and not really share anything because you don’t want someone to ask you a question that you feel like, well, I would be lying if I said, I don’t know.
And if I say, I don’t know that people are going to think something must be happening and it creates this rumor mill. I’m just going to take a step back. Are you embodying that transparent value? Are you showing up in the way you always had? No. And you know what the thing is? The biggest problem on your team is caused by you showing up differently. It’s not even about the news that’s coming because as a leader, you have the tools and the capacity.
And if you don’t know how to do this, that’s what I’m here for. So come get some coaching or some training, reach out hello at leader of a.com. If a little bit of this is like, I like it, but I don’t know what to do with it. But as a leader, you are going to have to help your teams weather the storm. Right. So like that’s already part of your job. There’s going to be storms coming.
What makes those storms worse, what makes the boat capsize in the storm, what’s makes your people leave because of their manager is when you start showing up differently. That’s the thing. OK, we can people are resilient. Most of the time they can withstand a project cancellation. They can withstand a reorg. But when you were the most transparent leader ever and then all of a sudden you’re like completely it’s you won’t say anything. You’re canceling one on one.
It’s like, where did my manager go? People have lost trust and that’s when they don’t want to work with you. So that’s what you’re being called to figure out. Now, I was actually in this exact situation years ago. I was working on a team in a fortune company. I was working in big tech. I’ll say I won’t be so specific. And I was working on a project and I had a manager that was always very, very transparent.
And I actually literally until I started talking just now, I didn’t realize why I give this example. But I think it was subconscious because I always give the example of being transparent. She was always very, very transparent and she would loop me into things and we had really high trust. And I was kind of the star player on the team. Why am I saying kind of? Let’s own it. I was the star player on the team.
And, you know, I knew, you know, I would always be looped in when stuff would come up. And one morning she sent me an email to get in touch with a team to kick off this project. It was going to be this big thing. And I had to wrangle a bunch of moving parts. And about an hour later, so I started the process of that and I was kind of doing some of the things. I was starting to set up the meetings and get things going.
An hour later, our whole team received an email that there was a massive reorg and that team amongst another hundreds of people were moved out. And I thought to myself, like, that’s so weird that she asked me to kick off this project today. Like it didn’t need to happen. Like she could have just not sent me that email where it would send this signal that I let you down this, I led you down this like a goose chase path only for an hour later it to be completely not necessary.
And I was most devastated about that piece. The reorg, it was a big hit. We lost a lot of folks on the team that were really doing impactful work. There was a lot, a lot of, of, you know, project shifts that came from that, that was really disruptive. But that would have been okay for me as that team member. The fact that this manager that I was really close with and, you know, had, had always looped me into stuff, just like asked me to start this thing, knowing this reorg was coming an hour later, it was like so inconsistent.
It completely broke the trust. Now I wasn’t upset that she didn’t tell me about the reorg. I understand that that’s not something that I’d be privy to. It was that this other thing had been spun up right before. You could have just waited and then it would be like an understandable situation. It was so out of character and so unnecessary to spin someone up for no reason, only for it to be not necessary an hour later.
That’s what broke the trust. It was the inconsistency. That’s what started me thinking, I don’t know if I can rely on this manager. I don’t really know if I do have a place on this team, if that’s kind of how they show up for me. That’s what I’m talking about with transparency or candor or compassion or whatever values that you want to show up as. One, they should be authentic to you so that it’s easy to maintain them.
But then it’s important to think about how am I going to continue to embody this when it’s hard? Let’s say you want to be compassionate and understanding. Those are the values that you really want to embody. Well, let’s say everyone, every single day, is complaining and complaining and complaining. It’s just getting you really fed up. Are you going to start yelling at everyone? No, that would be out of character. Are you going to be like, hey listen, I don’t have time for this?
No. What’s compassionate there? Probably to give some feedback and say, hey everyone, I’m finding it’s pretty hard to lead this team when this is the attitude. What’s going on here? Let’s get another service. That’s compassionate to address it, right? It doesn’t mean you’re, it’s like, I have to be nice and solve everyone’s problems for them. It’s actually addressing it. Again, that’s why I shared the example of the reorg. The issue with the lapse in kind of value behaviors, it wasn’t that this manager didn’t tell me there was a reorg coming.
Your teams hopefully understand, are mature enough to understand there’s going to be information that you can’t share. But are there ways in which you’re leaning into these, you know, leadership qualities that you want to embody so that you’re still acting consistently, right? So yeah, if you know that a project’s going to be canceled tomorrow, do you need to like initiate some sort of kickoff meeting today, an hour before? Probably not. Do you cancel the project meeting two weeks before?
No, right? You don’t do that either. You want to keep, that’s maybe too early to signal it. So it’s about using your leadership discernment, right? I’m not saying there’s a one-size-fits-all, but it’s not just thinking about like, well, I have to do this because it’s on my task list, or I need to get this done. It’s saying like, am I honoring the person that I set out to be as a leader? Because when you diverge from that, that’s when you lose people.
And again, there, you would really be surprised to see people are so much more resilient when there’s flat raises or bonuses or promotions or project cancellations or reorgs or all these things. People can withstand a lot more than you might expect, but when they have this manager they can’t rely on and that stuff, that’s when they’re just like, F this. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. Nobody is looking out for me. And I know because I’ve been there.
I know because I get asked the question every day from insurance companies that I work with, to home building, to healthcare teams, to a senior engineering director at Google just yesterday. I’m asked this question every single day. How do I continue to motivate my teams even when it’s hard? And my answer is, you first and foremost get you straightened out. You get you figured out. You figure out what does that even mean? How do you want to show up?
And what are you going to do? You yourself, what are you going to do? What are you going to tap into internally? What kind of coaching are you going to get? What kind of meditation are you going to do? Or what is it going to look like? So that you have figured out how to stay consistent with that. Doesn’t mean you have to be perfect, but it means you’ve thought about it and you think about some of these edge cases or some of these worst case scenarios and you’re like, well, gosh, yeah, what would I do?
We got a lot of worst case scenarios happening in the workplace. I was going to say for better or worse, for worse or worse. It’s a scary time. Everybody is very afraid on edge. A lot of uncertainty. Okay. So if we’re in the worst case scenario, just go for it. Think about what are these qualities you want to embody? Again, this exercise is in chapter two, I believe, of the new manager playbook. If you want, actually, how about this?
If you haven’t read the book and you want the excerpt from the book, email me at hello at legarver.com. I will gladly send you that page with the instructions. I’d love for you to do this exercise so that you feel really, really anchored to, okay, I’ve thought about it. I’ve figured this out. This is that answer. This is how I want to show up. But you can’t do that exercise if you haven’t thought, what about on my worst day?
Okay. Because that manager didn’t think about that. And I don’t work for that manager anymore. I’m kidding. It was a long time ago. I’ve gone off to do my own thing. But no, you know what I’m saying? We want to hang on to our A players. We want to hang on to our great people. We don’t need to contribute to more stress, right? When let’s show up with integrity, with consistency. That is the thing you have most control over.
All right. Do the exercise. I promise it’s going to give you a little bit more clarity, especially as so much is hard right now. I, and again, I will send you that worksheet. I will send you that worksheet. Send me an email at hello at legarver.com and we’ll get you going. And if this kind of thing opens up, gosh, I need a little bit more help. I haven’t quite figured out what the next step is, how to be having these conversations with my team.
That is what I’m here for. I’ve already said it. I know, but this is something you do not have to figure out alone. It is so hard. Every manager, whether you are a first time manager or a VP or a business owner, or someone managing four people or one person or 2000, we’re all wrestling with this stuff right now. So you’re not alone. You don’t have to deal with it alone. Again, reach out, get support, and we’re all in this together.
See you next time.
Questions this episode answers
How do I keep my best employees from leaving during uncertain times?
The single biggest factor in keeping great people is showing up consistently as the leader they know and trust. People can handle reorgs, project cancellations, and flat raises far better than most leaders expect. What they cannot handle is a leader who suddenly goes quiet, cancels one-on-ones, or acts out of character. When you stay consistent with the values and qualities you have always shown up with, you build the kind of trust that makes people want to stay, even when everything around them feels uncertain.
What should I do as a leader when I have information I can't share with my team?
You don't need to share confidential information, and your team understands that. What you do need to do is stay consistent with how you normally show up. If you are usually transparent and communicative, don't suddenly cancel one-on-ones or go silent. Your team won't lose trust because of news they can't control. They lose trust when you start acting differently and they can't predict who they're going to get. Use your judgment to avoid unnecessary actions, like kicking off a project you know is about to be canceled, but keep showing up the way you always have.
How do I figure out what kind of leader I want to be?
Start by identifying the qualities you genuinely want to embody as a leader, things like transparency, compassion, or directness. Then think through the hard cases: when would it be difficult to live up to those qualities? What would you do on your worst day? Setting an intention is a plan of action, not just a nice idea. The real test is whether you show up that same way on Thursday that you did on Monday, regardless of what is happening externally. That consistency is what builds trust and makes people want to work with you long term.
Why do employees suddenly seem disengaged or start looking for other jobs?
Most of the time it is not the hard news itself that drives people away. It is the inconsistency of their leader. When a leader who was always open and communicative suddenly becomes distant or unpredictable, team members lose their sense of safety and stop trusting that anyone is looking out for them. People are resilient. They can handle difficult business realities. What they struggle to handle is a leader they can no longer rely on. The missing piece is usually a leader who hasn't thought through how to stay grounded in their values when things get hard.
How do I stay a compassionate leader when my team keeps complaining and it's wearing me out?
Compassion does not mean absorbing every complaint without comment. If constant negativity is making it hard to lead, the compassionate move is to address it directly. You might say something like, 'I'm finding it hard to lead the team when this is the attitude. What's going on?' That is still consistent with being a caring, people-focused leader. Where leaders lose their teams is by swinging to the opposite extreme, shutting down, snapping, or pulling away entirely. Address the issue in a way that reflects the leader you set out to be, and you stay consistent.