Latest / The Difficult Boss Podcast with Fexingo: Managing Up, Toxic Managers, and Workplace Survival / Why High Performers Burn Out Under Good Managers
Transcript
- Lucas: I want to start with a scenario that feels incredibly familiar to anyone in middle management. You have an employee, let's call her Sarah. Sarah is reliable, sharp, and gets things done without drama. When she hits a roadblock, you don't tell her to figure it out; you step in, you clear the path, you make the calls, and you remove the obstacle so she can finish her project smoothly. Luna: And usually, you feel like a hero for doing that. It looks like good leadership on paper. Lucas: Exactly. But here is the uncomfortable truth: by removing that friction, you are actively preventing her professional growth. We tend to think of burnout as something caused by overwork or bad bosses, but there is a specific type of burnout that comes from being managed too well. It is what some organizational psychologists call the competence trap. Luna: The competence trap. I like that phrase because it sounds positive until you realize it means stagnation. Lucas: Right. The trap is that Sarah becomes so efficient at executing your solutions that she never develops the muscle memory for solving problems independently. She stops learning because you have become her external prefrontal cortex. And then, six months later, when a new crisis hits that you cannot solve for her, she collapses because she has no framework for navigating ambiguity. Luna: So the very thing that makes her valuable now—her reliability—is what makes her fragile for the future? Lucas: Precisely. And it creates a paradoxical dynamic where the employee feels unchallenged and bored, while the manager feels exhausted trying to hold everything together. We see this constantly in tech companies right now, especially in October twenty twenty-six, where the push for efficiency has led managers to hoard decision-making power rather than distribute it. Luna: It’s ironic. We spend millions on training programs about empowerment, but in daily practice, managers revert to rescue mode because it feels safer. Lucas: It feels safer because it yields immediate results. If you let Sarah struggle with that client email for ten minutes, she might send it wrong, and you have to fix it anyway. So you just write it for her. But over time, you are not building a team; you are building a dependency chain. And that dependency is exactly why high performers leave. They leave because they feel like they are getting smaller, not bigger. Luna: That resonates. I had a former colleague who left a role because she said she was 'managed into irrelevance.' She knew all the answers because her boss gave them to her. Lucas: Managed into irrelevance. That is a brutal way to put it, but it is accurate. Let’s look at the data. A study from Harvard Business Review back in twenty twenty-two tracked teams over eighteen months. They found that employees who received high levels of directive support from their managers showed significantly lower rates of skill acquisition compared to those who received autonomy-supportive guidance. The difference wasn't just about satisfaction; it was about actual capability growth. Luna: So the metric we should be tracking isn't just project completion speed, but the complexity of problems our people are solving on their own. Lucas: Yes. And this brings us to the concept of productive failure. In educational psychology, we know that students learn more from mistakes made during the learning process than from perfect execution of memorized tasks. In the workplace, we punish mistakes. If Sarah tries to handle the negotiation herself and fails, you might criticize her. So she stops trying. She waits for you to do it. You have conditioned her to avoid risk, which is the opposite of what you need for career advancement. Luna: But how do you balance that with accountability? If you step back and she fails, does that reflect poorly on you as a manager? Lucas: That is the core fear. Managers worry that if they don't intervene, the outcome will be bad, and their performance review will suffer. But here is the reframe: a small, early failure is a gift. It is low-cost data. If Sarah messes up a minor vendor contract now, while you are watching and can coach her through it, that is a win. If she messes up a major client deal next year when you are not there to help, that is a disaster. You are trading long-term resilience for short-term safety. Luna: It’s essentially insurance. Paying a small premium of occasional mistakes now to avoid a catastrophic loss later. Lucas: Exactly. And yet, most organizations are structured to eliminate those premiums. We reward consistency and punish variance. But variance is where innovation happens. Variance is where growth happens. If you want to retain your top talent, you have to stop treating them like assets to be protected and start treating them like athletes to be trained. Luna: Athletes get coached, not carried. There is a distinction there. Lucas: There is. And coaching requires discomfort. When Sarah comes to you with a problem, the instinct is to give the answer. The better move is to ask, 'What options have you considered?' or 'Who else in the company might have faced this?' You are shifting from being the solution provider to being the question asker. It takes longer in the moment, but it builds her internal toolkit. Luna: It changes the dynamic from dependency to partnership. She starts feeling like she is part of the strategy, not just the execution. Lucas: She does. And that sense of agency is critical for engagement. We see this in the current labor market where remote and hybrid work has made visibility harder. Employees need to feel they are making decisions, not just following instructions sent via Slack. If you are micromanaging the details, you are stripping away their ownership. Luna: I wonder if this is also why some managers resist delegating really important projects. They say they don't have time to teach, but really they are afraid of losing control. Lucas: Control is the enemy of scale. You cannot scale yourself if you are the bottleneck for every decision. The managers who rise the fastest are the ones who can build teams that operate effectively without them. That requires letting go of the urge to fix things immediately. Luna: So the advice for listeners who are managers is to sit on your hands a bit more. Literally. Lucas: Literally. Or at least, wait three seconds before responding. Ask clarifying questions instead of offering solutions. Make it clear that you trust their judgment, even if it differs from yours. Give them space to prove they can handle the weight. Luna: And for the employees listening, if you feel like you're becoming less capable over time, you might need to advocate for more challenging work. Tell your boss, 'I want to try leading this initiative myself.' Lucas: Yes. And frame it as a request for growth, not a complaint about workload. 'I want to develop my skills in X area,' is a powerful statement. It signals ambition and self-awareness. Luna: It turns the conversation from criticism to collaboration. Lucas: It does. Because ultimately, we are all responsible for our own careers. Your manager can open doors, but they cannot walk through them for you. And if they keep trying to carry you, you will never learn how to run. Luna: That is a strong way to put it. We are carrying the burden of our own potential. Lucas: We are. And that burden is heavy, but it is the only thing that builds strength. Without it, we remain dependent. Luna: Before we wrap up this angle, I want to mention that the work we do here depends on listener support. Lucas: If these conversations have helped you navigate a tough career moment or rethink how you lead your team, consider supporting the network. A small monthly contribution keeps the production ad-free and allows us to dig deeper into these topics. Luna: You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Even a few dollars a month makes a real difference in keeping this independent. Lucas: Thank you for that support. It genuinely helps us continue delivering these deep dives. Luna: Back to the topic. Let's talk about how to measure if you are succeeding in breaking this cycle. Lucas: Good point. The metric is simple: how many decisions can Sarah make without checking in with you? If the number goes up, you are winning. If it stays flat or goes down, you are still holding the reins too tight. Luna: It shifts the success metric from output to capacity building. Lucas: Exactly. Output is easy to see. Capacity is harder to track, but it is what determines long-term value. For both you and the organization. Luna: So the next time you feel the urge to jump in and save the day, pause. Ask yourself if you are helping or hindering. Lucas: That pause is the most important tool in a manager's kit. It separates good management from great leadership. Luna: And it gives your team the chance to surprise you. Lucas: They will. And you will be surprised by how much they can do when you finally let them try. Luna: I hope that resonates with everyone listening today. Lucas: It should. Because in the end, we all want to be the person who solves the problem, not the one who watches someone else solve it for us. Luna: Here is to building teams that can stand on their own. Lucas: To standing on our own, and lifting others up to do the same.