Latest / New Manager Conversations with Fexingo: First 90 Days, Managing Former Peers, and Leadership Basics / How New Managers Can Protect Their Team from Organisational Chaos
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, I want to start with a story that's been sitting with me. A friend of mine, let's call her Priya — she became a director of engineering at a mid-size SaaS company about eighteen months ago. She's sharp, she genuinely cares about her team. And she lost her best senior engineer last month. He quit. Luna: Ouch. What happened? Lucas: She was protecting him. Every time leadership sent down a new initiative — a reorg rumour, a shift in quarterly priorities, a request for a status deck — she absorbed it. She told herself, 'I'll filter the noise so my team can focus.' And for a while it worked. But her senior engineer started feeling disconnected. He didn't know where the company was going. He felt like he was building in a vacuum. So he left for a place where he could see the full picture. Luna: So her protection backfired. She thought she was helping, but she actually isolated him from the context he needed. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the tension I want to drill into today. As a new manager, you're told to 'shield your team.' But if you do it wrong, you become a bottleneck — or worse, you make your team feel like they're working in a bubble. The question is, how do you protect your team from organisational chaos without cutting them off from the information they need to do good work? Luna: I've seen the other extreme too. A manager who shares everything — every email, every rumour, every leadership whisper — and the team gets overwhelmed. They can't focus because they're constantly reacting to noise. Lucas: Right. So there's a spectrum. At one end, the fortress manager — everything is filtered, team is calm but clueless. At the other, the open-floodgate manager — team is informed but frazzled. Neither is great. The sweet spot is what I call the 'porous umbrella.' Luna: Porous umbrella — I like that. So it lets some stuff through? Lucas: Exactly. You're not a solid ceiling blocking everything. You're an umbrella that deflects the heavy rain — the urgent but unimportant requests, the low-priority reorgs, the noise — but lets through a steady drizzle of context. Your team needs to feel the weather. They just don't need to get soaked. Luna: So how do you decide what gets through versus what gets blocked? Lucas: I use a simple decision tree. Three questions. First: 'Does this information affect how my team does their work in the next two weeks?' If yes, it gets through — even if it's uncomfortable. If no, go to question two: 'Could this information affect a decision my team is making right now?' If yes, share it. If no, question three: 'Is this information something I can act on without them?' If I can handle it, I absorb it. If not, I escalate upward or loop them in briefly. Luna: That third one is tricky. Because sometimes you can act on it, but the team might benefit from knowing it happened. Lucas: Good point. That's where judgment comes in. I'd add a fourth question: 'Would my team feel blindsided if they found out about this later?' If the answer is yes, share a summary — not the play-by-play, just the headline and the implication. That builds trust without flooding them. Luna: I've got an example. A friend managed a team at a large retailer during a system migration. Her VP kept sending 'urgent' requests about new reporting requirements — but they were always changing, always low-priority. She started just handling them herself. Then one day the VP asked the team directly in a meeting, 'How's the new reporting integration going?' Her team had no idea what he was talking about. Lucas: Classic. She was filtering, but she didn't even tell them the filter existed. So when the VP revealed the context gap, the team looked out of the loop — and she looked like she'd been hiding things. Luna: Exactly. She should have said, 'Hey, the VP is sending over some reporting requests. I'm handling them because they keep changing, but here's the gist in case he asks. I'll keep you posted if anything solidifies.' Lucas: Yes. That's the porous umbrella in action. You acknowledge the noise, you take the hit, but you give them a one-sentence summary so they're not caught off guard. Priya, the director I mentioned earlier — she never told her team she was filtering. They just noticed that the context dried up. And that's what drove her senior engineer away. Luna: So transparency about the filter is almost as important as the filter itself. Lucas: Exactly. Now, the other side of this is learning to say no to requests from above — the 'protective no.' New managers especially struggle with this because they want to be seen as team players. But if you say yes to everything leadership throws at you, you're just passing the chaos downstream. Luna: Right. And that's how you burn out your team. So what's the script for the protective no? Lucas: I like a three-part structure. First, acknowledge the request and its importance — show you understand the business context. Second, state the trade-off explicitly. Third, offer an alternative. So it sounds like: 'I understand we need that data by Friday. Right now my team is finishing the Q3 roadmap, which is due Monday. If I shift them to your request, the roadmap slips. Could we push the data request to next Tuesday, or can I pull in someone from another team to help?' Luna: That's good because it's not just a no. It's a negotiation with clear reasoning. Lucas: Right. And it models the kind of trade-off thinking you want your own team to use. One thing I've seen newer managers do is they say yes to everything, then quietly overwork themselves to deliver. That's not sustainable. The protective no actually earns you more respect in the long run — it shows you're managing a portfolio of work, not just taking orders. Luna: I think a lot of managers also worry that if they say no, leadership will go around them directly to their team. And then they lose control entirely. Lucas: That's a real fear. And it happens when you haven't built the trust that you're making good calls. So the protective no only works if you've also been transparent about your team's priorities and capacity. If leadership already knows what your team is working on and why, they're more likely to trust your trade-off. Luna: So you need to proactively share your team's roadmap and bandwidth — before the ask comes. Then when you say no, it's not a surprise. Lucas: Exactly. Pre-empt the ask. Send a weekly one-pager to your stakeholders: 'Here's what we're focused on this week, here's what's on deck, here's what we're deprioritising.' Then when a new request comes in, they can see where it fits — or doesn't. Luna: That's smart. It also makes you look organised and strategic, which helps your reputation as a manager. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a great segue into something I want to touch on — how to handle a situation where you've been protecting your team but a senior leader keeps bypassing you. That's a sign that your porous umbrella has a hole in it. Luna: What do you do then? Lucas: First, don't get defensive. Go to that leader and say, 'I noticed you reached out to Sarah directly about the reporting change. I want to make sure we're aligned. Can I loop you in on our weekly priorities so you know where things stand?' That re-establishes you as the point of contact without accusing them. Luna: That's a classic manage-up move. You're not saying 'don't talk to my team.' You're saying 'let me help you get the information faster.' Lucas: Right. And if it keeps happening, you might need to have a harder conversation. 'I've noticed you're going directly to my team for updates. That creates confusion because they're not always aware of the full context. Can we agree that you'll come to me first, and I'll make sure you get what you need within the hour?' Luna: That sets a clear boundary while still being service-oriented. I like that. Lucas: So to bring it all together: your job as a new manager isn't to be a shield that blocks everything. It's to be a filter that adds value. You decide what's noise, what's signal, and what's a drizzle that your team needs to stay connected. And you communicate openly about the filter so your team trusts you. Luna: It reminds me of something you said earlier — 'your team needs to feel the weather, not get soaked.' That's a good mantra. Lucas: I think that's the core insight. Now, I'd love to hear from listeners who have their own examples — times when being too protective backfired, or when a protective no actually strengthened their relationship with leadership. We'll revisit this topic in a future episode. Luna: Before we wrap, I want to mention something that's been on my mind. This show, and the whole Fexingo network, is ad-free by design. We don't interrupt the conversation with sponsor reads or pre-rolls. And that's a choice we make because we believe the value is in the content itself, not in selling you something. Lucas: Yeah, and we hear from listeners that they appreciate that. It lets us go deeper without breaking the flow. If you've found this episode useful — or any of our episodes — and you want to support that ad-free approach, there's a simple way. It's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's it. No tiers, no perks, just a way to keep the lights on and the conversations free. Luna: And it genuinely helps. We're a small team, and listener support is what keeps us from having to chase sponsors. So if that's something you believe in, we'd be grateful. Lucas: Alright, back to it. I want to leave you with a quick exercise. This week, look at every request that comes to you from outside your team — from leadership, from peers, from other departments. For each one, ask yourself: 'Does my team need to know about this? If yes, what's the minimum they need to hear?' Then share that summary. You might be surprised how much you can absorb without them ever feeling the weight. Luna: That's actionable. And I'd add: share your filter. Tell your team, 'I'm handling the noise from the VP so you can focus on the launch. If anything changes, I'll flag it immediately.' That transparency is what builds trust. Lucas: Perfect. Thanks, Luna. And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll see you next time.