The Best Managers Build Themselves Out of a Job
What separates a great manager from an expensive bottleneck — and how to build a team that doesn’t need you to function
Hi folks, and happy belated Mother’s Day to all who celebrate! 🌸
Welcome back to our series on how to build an experience your employees actually want to stay for. So far, we’ve covered:
Treating resource management as the backbone of your business
How administrative accuracy is fundamental to building trust with your employees
This week, we’re shifting gears ever so slightly and shining a spotlight on managers. This one’s for you, people managers. 👋
If you’ve been reading WRT for a while, you know that managers are, to me, one of the most important functions in any business. You handle pretty much every essential part of the operation spanning strategy, communication, budgeting, and HR. The exec team wants to implement a new policy? Managers own the top-down communication and are expected to field the questions. Employees are dissatisfied with something? Managers are the first line of defense listening, absorbing, and escalating from the bottom up.
Execs, just putting it out there that Manager Appreciation Day is October 16th…
So. What I’m about to say might sound completely counterproductive, but hear me out: the best managers should be actively trying to build themselves out of a job.
Let that sink in.
This does not mean quiet quitting. What it means is that instead of building dependency, we should be building capacity. A manager who has made themselves indispensable sounds like a compliment, but it isn’t. It’s a liability.
🏖️ The Best Litmus Test You’re Not Using
Let me paint the picture.
You know what I’m talking about. PTO in your calendar, out-of-office on your email, but still somehow fully at work. Slack open at dinner. Emails at the airport. Checking in “just real quick” every single morning. That’s not a vacation. That’s remote work with a better view. 😩
I myself have lived that life. I don’t ever want to live it again.
Here’s what I’ve learned: how your team treats you while you’re on vacation is one of the best litmus tests for whether you’ve succeeded as a manager. Over the last few years, I’ve taken multiple one- or two-week trips and even a three-month maternity leave and I genuinely never opened my work apps. When I got back to work, the world didn’t end, my position wasn’t forgotten, and my team didn’t fall apart.
I came back actually rested. Imagine that.
💡 Pro-Tip: I give my team my personal phone number for true emergencies only. There’s a real psychological difference between tagging someone on Slack versus texting their personal cell while they’re abroad. The latter feels more intrusive, and people naturally think twice before doing it. You’re still reachable if the building is truly on fire, but the bar for “emergency” gets appropriately high.
👥 Two Types of Managers
The Indispensable Manager
The Indispensable Manager is always busy, always needed, always the answer. At first glance, they look like a star, and to be fair, they probably are one. But at some point, the stardom starts to fade, and they become a ceiling.
Signs you might be (or have) an Indispensable Manager:
Deadlines start slipping because too much work is funneled through one person
The team misses deadlines because they have a bottleneck (who is possibly micromanaging without realizing it)
Direct reports feel unsupported because their manager is too buried in their own work to show up for them
The executive team continues to see this person as an individual contributor, not a strategic leader
No one else trusts their team to get things done because the manager doesn’t either, so work keeps piling back up on them
I once listened to a panel at Transform that called these managers “Player Coaches,” or coaches who are still in the game, and therefore unable to zoom out and actually coach. That framing has stuck with me ever since.
The Multiplier Manager
The Multiplier Manager is, admittedly, a little hard to spot at first because their team just works. Questions get answered, decisions get made, things ship. They’re a true Coach: identifying strengths and weaknesses, carrying out strategy, and making the whole team better by being in the room.
Signs you might be (or have) a Multiplier Manager:
They have the headspace to think strategically and make proactive improvements — not just react
They have time to advocate for their team, collaborate cross-departmentally, and genuinely support their people
Their team understands the mission and has the autonomy to execute — they’re resourceful, and they know what decisions they can make independently
The executive team sees and respects them as a real leader, not a glorified IC
Everyone in the company knows: if someone from this team is on a project, it’s going to work
And, lastly, they go on vacation without the world burning down 🔥 (Callback!)
📚 If you haven’t read Multipliers by Liz Wiseman yet, add it to your list immediately.
🔑 A Note to Founders and Executives
The Indispensable Manager may initially feel like the safer bet to promote. They’re visible, busy, and seem essential.
But in the long run, it’s your Multiplier Managers who will allow your business to actually scale. None of what they build is accidental; it’s designed. And it’s on you to know which type of manager you’re cultivating.
⚠️ One Important Caveat
I want to acknowledge that everything I’ve described above can feel extremely difficult, or even impossible, if the environment around you doesn’t support it.
This only works when these three things are true:
⬇️ Your team: You’ve hired the right people (and the right number of people) you can genuinely trust to hold things down when you’re out.
⬆️ Your manager: You report to someone who actually encourages this, and doesn’t make passive-aggressive comments when you don’t answer a Slack at 9pm. (Executives: this one’s on you. 👀)
👋 You: You’ve built the guardrails, the documentation, the open dialogue, the clarity around expectations and decision-making that make it possible for your team to operate without you in the room.
Building yourself out of a job isn’t a solo project. It’s a systems job.
🛠️ Okay, But How Do You Actually Do It?
Alright, you’re sold on the why. Now let’s talk about the how, because I think this is where most managers get stuck. The Multiplier Manager concept sounds great on paper, but in practice, it requires you to build three specific things deliberately and consistently.
Here’s what that actually looked like for us.
1. A Decision Framework Your Team Can Use Without You
The single most common reason teams become dependent on their manager is that no one has ever clearly defined what decisions they’re allowed to make on their own.
Think about how many times someone has pinged you with a question that they probably could have answered themselves. That’s not a failure on their part. That’s a gap in the system. If your team doesn’t have a clear map of what’s in their lane, they will always default to asking. It’s the safe choice.
What I’d recommend: write it down. Literally. A simple decision framework that answers these three questions for your team:
