Latest / New Manager Conversations with Fexingo: First 90 Days, Managing Former Peers, and Leadership Basics / How New Managers Can Break the Cycle of Heroic Problem-Solving
Transcript
- Lucas: So I want to start with a story about a new manager I worked with a few years back. His name is Dan, first-time engineering manager at a mid-size SaaS company. About six weeks into the role, a production issue hits — something only happens in the staging environment, not critical yet, but the team is stressed. Luna: Classic new manager moment. Lucas: Exactly. Dan dives in. He stays late four nights in a row, writes most of the fix himself, pushes it to production. Ends up spending about thirty hours on it. His team? They basically watched. One of the senior devs later told me he felt useless — like Dan didn't trust him to handle it. Luna: And that's the irony, right? Dan thought he was being helpful. He was proving he could still code, still be a contributor. But he unintentionally sent the message: 'I don't trust you with this.' Lucas: That's exactly the trap I want to talk about today. I call it heroic problem-solving — when a new manager personally jumps on every fire because it's faster, safer, or more comfortable than delegating. And it's a huge barrier to building a self-sufficient team. Luna: We've touched on delegation before, in Episode 47 I think, but this feels different. It's not just about handing off tasks. It's about rewiring your own identity from problem-solver to problem-architect. Lucas: That's a great way to put it. Problem-architect versus problem-solver. The shift is from 'I fix things' to 'I design the system where the team fixes things.' And for a lot of new managers — especially if you were promoted because you were a great individual contributor — that's a really hard identity to let go of. Luna: Is there research on this? I'm thinking about Google's Project Aristotle — they found that the highest-performing teams weren't the ones with the most talented individuals. They were the ones with the highest psychological safety. And heroic problem-solving actually undermines that. Lucas: Yes. Project Aristotle is exactly the right frame. When a manager swoops in to solve everything, the team learns that failure is not a learning opportunity — it's a signal that the boss will take over. So they stop taking initiative. They stop surfacing problems early. They wait for the hero. Luna: And that creates a vicious cycle. The more you solve, the more dependent the team becomes, and the more you feel you have to solve. Lucas: So how do you break it? I've got a three-step framework that I've seen work. Step one: name the pattern. Step two: build a triage habit. Step three: celebrate team-led solutions. Luna: Let's start with naming. That sounds simple, but I think it's actually the hardest part for a lot of people. Lucas: It is. Because heroic problem-solving feels virtuous. You feel like you're being a good leader by stepping up. So the first thing is just to recognize it in the moment. The tell is that knot in your stomach when someone brings you a problem — that little voice that says 'I could just do this faster.' That's the trigger. Luna: And once you notice it, what do you do? Lucas: That's step two: triage. Not every problem is a delegation opportunity. Some are genuine emergencies. So you need a quick mental filter. I like a simple one: ask yourself three questions. One: can the team solve this without me? Two: if they can't, do they need coaching or do they need a decision? Three: if they need coaching, can I give it in under ten minutes? Luna: That's really practical. I could see a manager using that as a checklist before jumping in. Lucas: Exactly. If the answer to question one is yes, you step back. If it's no but they need coaching, you coach. If it's a decision they can't make, you decide and explain why. The trap is when you skip straight to 'I'll do it.' Luna: And step three is celebrating team-led solutions. That feels like the positive reinforcement piece. Lucas: Right. If you only ever acknowledge problems after you've solved them yourself, you're training the team to bring you solved problems or no problems at all. Instead, you want to publicly recognize when a team member surfaces an issue and works through it — even if they made a mistake along the way. That builds the psychological safety we talked about. Luna: I love that. Can you give an example of what that celebration looks like in practice? Like, actual words a manager would say. Lucas: Sure. Let's say a junior engineer named Priya spots a bug in the deployment pipeline. She tries to fix it herself, but the first attempt fails and she has to roll back. Instead of jumping in to fix it, the manager says: 'Priya, I love that you caught this early and owned it. The rollback was the right call. Tell me what you learned and what you'd try next.' Luna: That's so much more powerful than 'Let me take a look.' It builds confidence and ownership. Lucas: And it's hard to do, especially when you're under time pressure. But the investment pays off. Dan, the manager I mentioned at the start — after about three months of consciously applying this, his team was handling incidents on their own. He was only needed for about ten percent of the escalations, compared to the eighty percent he was involved in initially. Luna: That's a huge shift. And I imagine his stress level went way down too. Lucas: Absolutely. And his team's trust in him went up. They started seeing him as a coach, not a bottleneck. That's the real win. Luna: So if someone is listening and thinking 'I do this all the time' — what's one thing they can try this week? Lucas: Pick one problem that walks through your door this week — could be a Slack message, an email, a hallway conversation — and before you respond, pause for five seconds. Ask yourself: 'Could someone on my team own this? If so, how do I set them up to succeed?' Then deflect it, and follow up to see how it went. Luna: That's a very concrete challenge. I think a lot of listeners will be surprised at how many things they can let go of. Lucas: If today's episode was useful to you — if it gave you a framework or even just that one question to ask yourself — I want to mention something. This show stays ad-free because of listener support. People who find value in these conversations and want to keep them accessible. If that's you, you can help at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to say this matters. And it really does help us keep the lights on without interrupting the conversation. Lucas: Alright — back to the framework. We talked about the three steps, but there's one more layer I want to add: how to handle the situation when you do need to step in. Because sometimes, the problem genuinely is at your level. Luna: Right — you don't want to swing too far the other way and become a completely hands-off manager either. Lucas: Exactly. The key is to be intentional about when you engage. When you do step in, don't just solve the problem silently. Narrate your thinking. Say something like: 'I'm going to take this one because it involves a cross-team dependency that I'm already managing. But here's how I'm approaching it, and I'd like you to shadow me so you can handle the next one.' Luna: That turns it into a coaching moment instead of a rescue mission. Lucas: Exactly. And it maintains the team's growth trajectory. I saw a study from the Center for Creative Leadership that said new managers who delegate more in their first six months have teams with higher engagement scores at the one-year mark. The effect was significant — about fifteen percent higher on engagement surveys. Luna: Wow, that's a concrete data point. So it's not just about being nice — it's actually better for performance. Lucas: Right. And I think the hardest part for a lot of new managers is trusting that the team will step up. But they usually do, if you give them a clear framework and safety to fail small. Luna: We talked about celebrating team-led solutions, but I want to go back to the triage step for a second. How do you decide between coaching and just letting them figure it out? Lucas: That's a great question. I use a simple heuristic: if the team member has the skills but lacks confidence, coach. If they have confidence but lack skills, teach. If they have neither, pair them with someone who does. If they have both and the problem is straightforward, get out of the way. Luna: I like that. It's a decision tree you can run through in seconds. Lucas: And the more you practice it, the more instinctive it becomes. Eventually, you stop even thinking about 'should I solve this?' and start thinking 'what does this person need to grow?' Luna: That's the shift we want. So to wrap up — for anyone in their first 90 days as a manager, what's the one mindset shift you'd recommend? Lucas: Your job is not to be the smartest person in the room. Your job is to make everyone else smarter. If you solve everything, you're the bottleneck. If you build problem-solvers, you're the multiplier. And that's the real metric of success. Luna: That's a great note to end on. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. And thanks to everyone listening. See you next time.