A Team Whisperer is a translator between a business owner or leader and their team, surfacing the real reasons work stalls and people resist change. Lia uses this role to bridge communication gaps, uncover hidden fears, and craft the right level of messaging for each layer of a team. This episode is especially useful for owners and leaders who feel stuck in the weeds or whose team keeps pushing back on decisions.
This episode is part of the Communication, Vision & Buy-in series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“…this is why only three in 10 people want to be managers right now, because we got an employee that’s looking at our calendar asking why they can’t meet with the CEO.”
“They’re not saying these things that we can kind of jump to when we’re frustrated. They’re saying I want to be able to be successful here. That’s what your team members are saying.”
Episode highlights
Why managing feels like one contradiction after another
Do more with less. Delegate without letting go. Set expectations without micromanaging. Give visibility while making sure people still earn it. Lia opens by naming the real reason only three in ten people want to be managers right now: the contradictions stack up fast, and without a stable foundation, every weird request knocks you sideways. The fix is not eliminating the frustrating moments. It is lowering your baseline so those moments do not take you out.
The employee who wants to be in every meeting
Someone who is constantly asking for more visibility, more invites, more access reads as entitled. Lia reframes it: this person has been told “good work does not just get noticed” and is trying, just not in a way that matches how your team operates. The underlying need is recognition and a clear path forward. The manager skill is cultivation, not dismissal. Coach them on how to actually use the access they already have. Show up with your laptop closed. Ask one sharp question instead of several scattered ones. Nail the end-of-quarter presentation. When you respond to ambition with a real action plan, you redirect energy without squashing it.
The employee who is reading your calendar
Open calendar policy does not mean everyone gets a pass-down from every meeting you attend. Lia is direct: acknowledge the policy, name what transparency looks like from you, and set the limit plainly. The underlying issue is the person wants to connect the dots and feel in the know. That is not a character flaw. You just cannot give them everything all the time, and you can say so without apology.
Giving feedback (or firing someone) when you were not there for any of it
Inheriting a team mid-cycle is one of the hardest spots a leader lands in. If someone is on a performance improvement plan and you are skeptical the context is complete, ask. Ask HR, ask your own manager. A dip in performance sometimes traces back to a previous manager who was not giving support, not to a person who cannot do the job.
When you have to deliver a locked-in performance review you did not write, Lia’s script is simple: acknowledge it is awkward, name yourself as the messenger, and then pivot immediately to a forward plan. Get visibility on their work now. Attend a meeting or two. Ask for updates more often than you would normally. Do not leave them hanging for six months. That acknowledgment creates fast trust, especially with someone who has been through a revolving door of managers.
The two-minute question that changes how you respond
Before you react to a request, pause and ask: what does this person actually mean? Not what are they literally asking for, but what need is underneath it? Is it recognition? A clearer path? A sense that someone is looking out for them? The answer usually takes two minutes to find. When you get it right, you save hours, days, sometimes weeks of friction and prevent people from walking out the door. The two minutes is always worth it.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 234: How to get your team to actually adopt any new process or tool. When a new tool or process stalls, the problem is almost never the tool. It is the framing. Lead with what each person specifically gets out of it, and adoption follows. This episode is most useful for owners and team leads who have introduced something new only to watch their team keep doing it the old way.
- Ep 211: How to communicate vision so your team actually buys in. Teams disengage from vision not because the strategy is wrong, but because the message is only delivered once, from one person, without connecting to daily work. Lia breaks down the cascade problem, the repetition principle, and how to equip every level of your leadership chain to carry the message. This episode is essential for founders, executives, and team leads heading into a new planning cycle.
- Ep 196: How to get your team locked in and finish the year strong. Getting your team locked in starts with connecting every person to a goal they actually care about, not just telling them to work harder. Lia walks through how to set a rallying goal, show each team member why their role matters, and use a simple weekly wins practice to sustain momentum through year-end. This episode is especially useful for owners and leaders who feel their team coasting after summer.
- Ep 103: What is a Team Whisperer and how can one fix your communication breakdowns?. A Team Whisperer is a translator between a business owner or leader and their team, surfacing the real reasons work stalls and people resist change. Lia uses this role to bridge communication gaps, uncover hidden fears, and craft the right level of messaging for each layer of a team. This episode is especially useful for owners and leaders who feel stuck in the weeds or whose team keeps pushing back on decisions.
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)
We’re in a moment right now of contradictions in the workplace. We’re supposed to be super clear, but not micromanage. Delegate, but not let too much go. And everyone’s favorite, do more with less. It can feel as a leader like, well, I don’t know how to strike the right balance. And this morning I was going through Reddit, r slash managers, to just see what’s top of mind, what folks are wrestling with. I love to do this from time to time.
And I saw a few different posts that really spoke to these contradictions that folks are navigating. One especially was about new employees wanting a ton of visibility and wanting to be out there and wanting these opportunities. And that brings up the contradiction of how do we give folks opportunities, but also folks have to pay their dues a little bit and they have to take time to get out there. Another was about how do I discipline an employee or actually even fire an employee that had all this stuff happen before I started?
I became their manager and I could deliver this news and I don’t really know if I’m on board with it. And another question was, what do I do when we have an open calendar at work and an employee’s asking me about all these meetings I’m attending? And I was like, oh my God, that’s so annoying. That would drive me nuts. It’s so frustrating. So these contradictions, we’re all facing them. And I know that it can feel like this, these things can be those where it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
One more time when you’re told one thing and you’re not given the tools and you’re not given the support to figure it out. And it’s just like, I don’t want to do this. This is why only three in 10 people want to be managers right now, because we got an employee that’s looking at our calendar asking why they can’t meet with the CEO and we’re meeting with them. And these are things though, that when we go back to the foundations, back to the basics, we feel way more equipped to handle.
I’m not going to tell the annoying stuff isn’t going to happen anymore. But when we aren’t operating in a state of depletion, when we aren’t, you know, when our nervous system isn’t supercharged, when we actually feel stable and our baseline is lower and how we’re navigating this role of a manager, we can deal with these things that might be frustrating. They might throw us off a bit. They might make us say like, what? But they just don’t knock us off kind of completely.
So that’s what we’re talking about today. 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. Because these contradictions, do more with less, like I said, delegate without letting go of everything, set expectations without micromanaging, you know, give visibility without, you know, while making sure folks still pay their dues. These things can make us feel like, well, right when I’m starting down one path, I realize I’m doing it wrong and now I don’t really know what to do.
So let’s take a step back. What are the common things that are coming up right now? I think when it comes to disciplining team members that you don’t have, you know, context with, I’ve mentioned many times on the show, I’ve joined teams where I’ve delivered a performance review for team members that I didn’t, you know, I wasn’t there for the whole performance term. I didn’t set the rating. I didn’t give the feedback. Now I’m just delivering this news.
That’s a really hard situation. Now the theme there, the skill under that is how do you both get up to speed quickly? How do you communicate a plan for someone that you’re just getting to know? When it comes to folks wanting more visibility before they’ve kind of earned that, whether it’s the person that wants to know what all the invites are, or being, you know, be in all the meetings when, you know, you don’t really need them there yet, or they’re just getting up to speed.
That’s someone being hungry to accelerate their career, right? That’s someone wanting to jump a few steps ahead. And the manager skill there is to paint the picture of, hey, how does growth work? What’s the vision that we have for you? How can I get you excited about this with also knowing that there’s some steps to go through? So when you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s actually the resolution, like I said, when you’re feeling these contradictions, is to say, okay, what manager’s skill is underneath?
And then we build from there. So I want to actually start with the question of when folks want more context, or clarity, or information, or more visibility, or they want to be in the meetings, and they want all these things. Because that one can make us really frustrated as a manager, and it can make us sometimes dismissive of the underlying issue. When someone’s coming at us, I want this opportunity, and I want to raise it, I have a new project, and they’re saying what they want, they want, they want, they want, they want.
It can make us think this person’s entitled. It can make us think this person doesn’t understand how things work here. They don’t want to pay their dues. They’re trying to jump ahead too fast. They’re, you know, whatever. We can start to think they are doing something wrong, right? Any iteration of that. What’s the underlying issue here? The issue is your team member doesn’t quite understand how the process works here. And you’re not saying like, oh, you don’t know how these work there.
They actually don’t know how to get more visibility. They’ve been told, ask for what you want, put yourself out there, good work doesn’t just get noticed. They’re kind of like on the right track, just not going about it in a way that’s matching for you. And so the underlying issue is this person is hungry for visibility. They’re, hopefully they’re ambitious. They’re wanting more. Let’s not jump to entitled. And so the manager’s skill is, okay, I have a person who’s hungry.
How do I really cultivate this? How do I, how do I encourage this instead of diminish it and squash it and meet this person with an action plan? And so if I had a team member that’s coming to me every day, wanting more visibility, more visibility. And let’s say that when they’re in meetings, they ask questions that are like not relevant or they don’t really look like they’re paying attention. They’re not even utilizing those opportunities well.
Like let’s say we’re being asked and hey, this isn’t even going well when they’re there. The opportunity there is to say, hey, I want to put you in more situations where you’re getting visibility. Here are some ways we can do that. You know, creating a really airtight presentation for the end of quarter review. That’s a great way to really show your work and your strategic thinking. When you’re in meetings, try asking one super clear, simple question to kind of get people to think bigger.
When you’re in meetings, have the laptop and the phone put away and really be engaging. Most folks are looking at their computers. You’re going to really stand out if you’re actually engaged in the conversation. Give a little coaching. Give a little feedback so that someone is utilizing the opportunity well. And you might say, hey, you’re not going to be able to be in every single meeting. Obviously, we have a bigger team. We have more people to be putting around.
We’re trying to keep meetings small so that they can be more effective. So when you’re in the situation, really show up. Knock it out of the park and there will be more opportunities for you. So now you’re showing you’re getting under the surface. You recognize this person wants to go faster. You recognize they want more visibility. But you’re holding them to a standard. You’re not just like, all right, whatever, go to it. For the team member that’s asking you about every meeting in your calendar, you might say, hey, we have open calendar policy at this company.
And that’s the way it is. It doesn’t mean we ask everyone about every meeting. I am a transparent manager. I share what I can. And I invite folks in and loop people in when I can. And there’s going to be meetings that you’re not able to be at. And there’s going to be conversations that I am not able to share pass downs with at this point. Be direct. The underlying issue there is the person wants all the information and they want to be able to connect the dots for themselves and they want to be able to be in the know.
It’s not bad. You just don’t get to have that all the time. And then the last piece, my third Reddit question that I read that I wanted to dive into, of how do I give hard feedback, maybe even fire someone when I wasn’t there for any of the context? Now, the firing someone is a little bit more complicated because that’s a ball that’s been in motion. HR’s likely been involved. But I will say this. If someone is on, let’s say, a performance improvement plan and you become the manager and you see, hey, is there potential here?
Is there something here? It’s totally in your right to ask HR for more clarification or ask your higher-ups. It could be a situation where someone’s performance was dipped because they didn’t have support from the previous manager. It could be a situation where, you know, once there was a new start, the person really turned things around. When they had a new manager, they want to try again. In my opinion, and again, as you know, I’m not an HR professional.
I’m not an HR background. I’m a team operations background. In my opinion, I would ask though. I would ask HR and ask your manager to ask if you feel like, hey, I don’t know if this person, you know, if they have it, if it’s more just sort of gaps in performance, not something egregious. I think it’s completely in your right to ask about it. Now, if you’re delivering performance review feedback and it’s all locked in and you have to share what the rating is and the feedback and you weren’t there for the cycle, acknowledge it’s a hard conversation.
Acknowledge it’s a little bit weird. I’ve been there. And in that situation, I’ve said, hey, I know that I wasn’t here for the last cycle. It’s a little bit awkward for both of us that I’m sharing this feedback. I’m literally just the messenger. So I want to share it with you. But that’s not the end of this conversation. In this conversation, let’s make a plan for how you’re going to action some of this. And then how I can become up to speed on the work that you’re doing so I can be giving you new feedback.
And I’m not going to wait for six months to give you feedback. Let’s do some, you know, how can I get some visibility, maybe attend a couple meetings you have or share a couple updates more frequently than you will do in the future so that I can get up to speed on your work and give you feedback from my perspective. I don’t want to leave you hanging. When I’ve done this with my team members, it creates such immediate buy in.
It builds trust quickly. It shows them I’m not just like, whatever, I’m just relaying the feedback and come back to me at the next performance review. They’re seeing, wow, this person gets that this kind of sucks for me. They get that I don’t, I’ve been through a revolving door of managers. They get that I’m listening to a piece of feedback from someone that’s not even here. And now I’m wondering did that person even like really try hard when they’re writing that review up?
Think about it from your team member’s perspective. And that’s what I keep talking about getting to the underlying issue. When you give performance feedback or you’re doing a performance improvement plan with someone and you didn’t have any of the context for that employee, they’re like, what do you care? What are you doing here? They feel like they don’t have a chance. And acknowledging that, that’s how you get that buy in. That’s how you get that trust.
And again, if someone’s on a performance improvement plan, that’s where you might see this behavior completely turn around. And that’s why I’m an advocate when it’s possible to kind of get more information about it if you’ve inherited that situation. Because there is a chance of turning things around. So when it comes to these contradictions and we’re pulled in a million different ways and we want to, you know, we feel like we’re doing things right and it’s still not working or we’re in a situation that seems already frustrating out of the gate, we want to pause.
Get more information and look under the surface. What is the person’s actually saying? They’re not saying I’m entitled and I don’t care. They’re not saying I hate you as a manager because I hated my last manager. They’re not saying I deserve to be everywhere. I don’t think I need to pay my dues. They’re not saying these things that we can kind of jump to when we’re frustrated. They’re saying I want to be able to be successful here.
That’s what your team members are saying. Help me as my manager, help me see how to be successful here. How do I get paid more here? How do I get a better title here? How do I get more recognition? How do people see me and notice me? That’s what folks want to hear. So we get under the surface. Like I said, if it’s around speed and more and want it faster, it’s around recognition. They want to understand what is the path here.
They want to see that someone’s looking out for them. If it’s around feedback gaps, they want to see that someone now today, their new manager cares about them. If it’s about feeling like, oh, I never get, you know, this never happens for me. If someone’s feeling like they’re never getting opportunity. Well, that’s, I feel like I don’t have recognition. No one sees me. So we want to take what’s being said and not just action it from that level, but think about what does this person mean?
And that question, it takes about five minutes to really think through, maybe two minutes. I am not telling you something that’s going to take you hours and hours and hours of time. And a lot of times we don’t take that step to say, what is this person really thinking? So we think I don’t have time to figure this out. I’m talking about two minutes, everybody two minutes, because when you get it right, you save hours and hours and days and weeks, and you save people from leaving.
That’s worth it. It’s worth the two minutes. Okay. So what does this person actually mean? What do they actually need? And then you tailor your next step to that because when you get the next step, right, you save yourself hours and days and weeks of time. So you do have time for that. All right. As always, I love questions that people share. I got these three today from Reddit and please send me your questions. If you have a specific question, send it to hello at leahgarver.com.
If it makes sense to put on the show, then I will talk about it live here. A lot of times I answer, just reply to the email and say, hey, here’s a couple of thoughts. So I also reply to these directly as well. If they’re, if they’re a little bit niche or nuanced, and let’s just make this easier together. Being a manager is so hard. It’s so overwhelming. There are all these contradictions. So the more we get out here, and that is why I went to Reddit because I said, well, if these are on the front page of Reddit, it doesn’t mean a lot of people are wondering these same things.
So share your questions because if you are experiencing it, other folks are experiencing it too. I assure you. All right. See you next time.
Questions this episode answers
What does it mean when a team member keeps asking for more visibility or wants to be in every meeting?
It usually means they want to know how to succeed and get noticed, not that they're entitled or trying to skip the line. They've likely been told to put themselves out there and advocate for themselves, so they're doing what they think works. Your job as their leader is to channel that hunger, not shut it down. Show them what visibility actually looks like here, give them specific ways to stand out in the rooms they're already in, and help them see a real path forward so their ambition has somewhere useful to go.
How do I handle an employee who keeps asking about meetings on my calendar that they weren't invited to?
Be direct and don't overthink it. You can acknowledge that an open calendar policy is company practice while being clear that it doesn't mean every meeting is open for discussion. Tell them you share what you can, loop people in when it makes sense, and that some conversations simply won't have pass-downs. The underlying need here is that they want to feel in the know and able to connect the dots. Name that, be transparent about what you can share, and set a clear boundary around what you can't.
How do I give performance feedback or deliver a performance review when I wasn't the manager who observed any of the work?
Acknowledge the awkwardness directly instead of pretending it isn't there. Tell your team member you know this is a strange situation, that you're essentially the messenger on feedback you didn't write, and that you don't want to leave them hanging. Then make a plan together: figure out how you'll get up to speed on their work quickly, commit to giving them your own feedback sooner than the next formal cycle, and show them you're actually invested in their success. That honesty builds trust fast and gives them a reason to engage rather than check out.
What should I do if I inherit a team member who's already on a performance improvement plan?
Ask questions before assuming the plan should stay on its current track. Talk to HR and your own leader to understand the full history. Sometimes a dip in performance was tied to a lack of support from a previous manager, and a fresh start is exactly what that person needed. If the situation isn't egregious, it's completely reasonable to push for more context. You may find the person turns things around quickly once they have a leader who's actually paying attention and invested in helping them succeed.
Why do so many small team frustrations feel so overwhelming for leaders right now?
A lot of it comes from the contradictions built into leading a team today: be clear but don't micromanage, delegate but stay in control, do more with less. When your baseline stress is already high, even a minor situation like someone asking why they weren't invited to a meeting can feel like the last straw. The fix isn't eliminating the frustrating moments. It's lowering your baseline by getting back to solid fundamentals so those moments don't knock you completely off course. A stable foundation means a single awkward request stays small instead of feeling like a crisis.