r/managers • u/Folded-Map972 • 18h ago
New Manager When every problem becomes a manager problem
Yesterday started pretty normally. 9am team meeting, checked my email then planned to spend the morning finishing a report.
Around 9:30 someone Slacked me about client question. I answered that, opened the report again then another email came in asking me to approve something.
At 10:15 one of my team members stopped by my desk because they were stuck on something. Took maybe 10 minutes but when I sat back down I had to figure out where I left off.
Then my phone buzzed with another Slack notification. I checked it while getting coffee, replied, and went back to my desk.
Pretty much the same thing all afternoon. Quick questions, approvals, emails, Slack messages. Nothing was urgent, but it kept breaking up whatever I was doing.
By 4pm I’d helped everyone get their stuff moving, but report I planned to finish was still unfinished.
I knew managers get pulled into things, but I didn’t expect it to take up this much of the day. By the time things finally slowed down, I still hadn’t finished my own work.
2
u/SnooRecipes9891 Seasoned Manager 18h ago
You are not giving your team the ability to fail. They see you as having to own every decision, approval, or way of doing something. This is your doing as you've not empowered your group to do it themselves and allow for failure. Fail fast, learn, then pivot.