You know the story. The best programmer in the team becomes head of development. The best salesperson gets the whole sales team. It makes sense, they understand the work in detail. And then something happens that we have been seeing in companies for almost thirty years: the new manager leads people exactly the way they used to solve technical tasks.
In an interview for Startitup Martina and I put it in one sentence that has since found its way into our trainings: a specialist solves problems, a leader works with people.
What a specialist in a manager’s chair looks like
Not being able to let go of the specialist inside is not ill will or an ego trip. Most of the time it is habit, and the fear that without my control it will not turn out well. It shows in very concrete ways:
- stepping into people’s work and correcting them even when it is not needed,
- finishing things for them because “it will be faster”,
- not delegating, or delegating and taking the task back a week later,
- checking details instead of results,
- and in the end having no time for the one thing the team needs: direction, feedback and decisions.
Meanwhile the team learns that waiting pays off. Why should I bother when the boss will redo it anyway? Micromanagement produces exactly what the manager is afraid of: passive people who do not take responsibility.
What actually changes
My job is no longer to solve everything myself. My job is to make sure my people are able to do their work.
Jana Olexová and Martina Šarišská, Startitup, August 2026
That is the whole change. It sounds simple, but in practice it means giving up the certainty that expertise provided. A specialist knows when a task is done. A leader has to trust that someone else will finish it, and perhaps differently than they would have. That is why so many managers cling to technical tasks: they are measurable, understandable and give a sense of being useful. Working with people is slower and the result comes later.
Three steps we start with in our trainings
- Name what you do for others. For a week, write down the tasks you finished yourself although they belonged to someone in the team. The list surprises most managers.
- Assign the result, not the procedure. Say what should be done, by when, and how you will know it is good. Leave the how to the person. If you want to correct them, first ask why they do it this way.
- Come back to it. The conversation after a task is finished is where people learn. Not the instruction before it and not a silent correction afterwards.
It cannot be learned over a weekend
A two-day training shows what to do differently. But just like in sport or a foreign language, the change itself happens only through repetition in everyday work. That is why our leadership programs run for months, not days, and why we work with participants’ real situations between sessions. For what happens between trainings we have also developed a simulation app in which a manager can practise a difficult conversation with an employee, for example an angry or confrontational one, before the real thing.
If you recognise specialists who became managers and are struggling with it in your company, write to us. The first consultation is free and we prefer to start with a description of the problem, not an order for a training.