Spotify

You don’t want to be a micromanager. But if every meeting, decision and deadline needs you, could you be getting in your team’s way?

We’ve talked a lot on Loud & Lifted about dealing with bad bosses. This time, we’re flipping the conversation: how do you make sure you aren’t becoming one?

Betsy sits down with team management expert and author of The New Manager Playbook, Lia Garvin, to unpack the habits that can quietly undermine your team—even when you’re trying to be helpful. From sitting in every meeting to holding onto work your best people are ready to take on, Lia shares three signs of micromanaging and what to do instead.

Whether you’re managing people for the first time or have been leading for years, this conversation offers practical ways to delegate, set clear expectations and build trust without being involved in everything. Because being great at your job and helping other people succeed are two different skills.

You’ll learn:

• How to recognize three signs you’re micromanaging without realizing it.
• How to help your team make decisions instead of waiting for your approval.
• How to give high performers meaningful opportunities so they see a future on your team.
• How to create a shared sense of urgency with clear deadlines, context and ownership.
• How to use one-on-ones to understand and develop your people—not just collect updates.

Chapters

00:00 How to Avoid Becoming a Bad Boss

02:16 Why Good Employees Aren’t Automatically Good Managers

08:15 Three Signs You Might Be Micromanaging

10:29 Sign 1: You’re in Every Meeting

12:42 Sign 2: You Make Every Decision

14:25 Sign 3: You’re Holding Back Your High Performers

18:12 How Micromanaging Limits Your Own Career

19:57 What Kind of Manager Do You Want to Be?

23:50 “I Don’t Want to Micromanage, But…”

26:11 How to Create Urgency Without Chasing Your Team

28:42 Who’s Actually Accountable?

29:22 Why Clear Communication Takes More Than an Email

33:08 Are Your One-on-Ones Just Checking a Box?

34:11 Where to Start Becoming a Better Manager

37:28 Connect with Lia Garvin

38:05 One Management Habit to Change This Week

About Lia

Lia Garvin is a team management consultant, speaker and author of The New Manager Playbook. Her experience includes leading team operations at Google, Microsoft and Apple, and she hosts the Managing Made Simple podcast.

Website: https://www.liagarvin.com/

Book: https://www.liagarvin.com/newmanagerplaybook/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liagarvin/

You got the promotion. You earned your seat. So why do you still feel like you have to prove you belong?

In this Quick Lift, I’m sharing key takeaways from my conversation with Shannon Nutter, author of Walking on Broken Glass. We’ll unpack why success doesn’t erase the double standards women face—and what you can do when hard work alone isn’t moving you forward.

From asking better questions about vague feedback to understanding the politics of advancement and backing other women up, this episode turns a frustrating reality into practical steps you can use this week.

Listen to the full conversation with Shannon Nutter on Loud & Lifted.

Links

Full Episode

What happens after a woman breaks through the glass ceiling—and finds herself walking on broken glass?

Shannon Nutter is a longtime financial services executive, board member and co-author of Walking on Broken Glass: Navigating the Aftermath of the Glass Ceiling. After decades of working in male-dominated industries and holding senior leadership roles, Shannon knows firsthand how quickly a successful woman can go from being valued to being viewed as a threat.

In this conversation, we unpack what workplace bias actually looks like, why accomplished women often question their own experiences and how the story around a woman’s leadership can suddenly begin to change.

This isn’t a conversation about blaming, complaining or telling women to fix themselves. It’s about recognizing the warning signs, understanding the dynamics happening around us and being better prepared to respond.

We talk about:

• What happens after women break through the glass ceiling
• How workplace bias and the “takedown playbook” show up
• Why successful women can still be caught completely off guard
• How to recognize when the problem isn’t your performance
• Why relationships and political capital matter
• How to document and protect yourself when things shift
• What meaningful support between women really looks like
• Why organizational change can’t rest solely on women

If you’ve ever felt the narrative around you change at work—or watched it happen to another woman—this conversation will help you better understand what was happening and what to do next.

Chapters

04:55 Why the glass ceiling isn’t the last barrier

06:47 Why great performance isn’t always enough

12:49 Recognizing bias in your workplace

14:45 The Goldilocks syndrome: Too much or not enough

17:26 The invisible org chart and office politics

23:28 The takedown: When high performers get pushed out

29:18 Warning signs you might be overlooking

32:59 Protecting your voice, results and network

36:13 Collaboration over competition: Supporting other women

Links

Purchase Walking On Broken Glass

Connect with Shannon

So many women were taught to be nice, helpful, agreeable and easy to work with. Those qualities aren’t bad—but they become a problem when they keep us quiet, overextended or afraid to disappoint anyone.

In this Quick Lift, Betsy recaps her conversation with Michelle Minnikin about “Good Girl” conditioning, why people may resist when we begin to change, and how to set boundaries without believing we’ve become cold, difficult or selfish.

Links

Full episode with Michelle

Connect with Michelle Minnikin

Were you taught to be nice, helpful, agreeable and easy to work with—only to end up overworked, undervalued and quietly resentful?

In this episode, Betsy talks with psychologist, coach and Good Girl Deprogramming author Michelle Minnikin about the conditioning that teaches women to put everyone else first. They unpack how it follows us into the workplace, why traditional career advice often fails women and how being the “good girl” can eventually hold us back.

Michelle also explains why resentment is one of the clearest signs that a boundary has been crossed, how to begin changing these patterns through small experiments and what it really means to enter your villain era—without becoming someone you’re not.

You’ll learn:

• How good-girl conditioning shows up at work
• Why being capable and agreeable can lead to more work, but not more opportunity
• How to recognize when your boundaries are being crossed
• Why resentment is an important signal instead of something to ignore
• How to practice setting boundaries in small, realistic ways
• Why visibility and self-promotion aren’t selfish
• What it means to become comfortable with being disliked

Learn more about Michelle and find her book, Good Girl Deprogramming, at michelleminnikin.com.

Chapters

00:00 What “Good Girl” Conditioning Teaches Us

04:06 How Good Girls Show Up at Work

08:23 Deprogramming Starts with Small Steps

12:01 Resentment Is a Boundary Warning Sign

14:20 Experimenting with Boundaries

17:45 When Competence Turns You into the Worker Bee

21:10 Entering Your Villain Era

24:12 Becoming “Unfuckwithable”

25:11 Why “Let Them” Isn’t Always Enough

27:18 Who Pushes Back When Women Change

29:38 One Practice to Begin Deprogramming

31:20 Where to Connect with Michelle

Episode Overview:

If you’re the person everyone relies on, it can start to feel completely normal to carry way too much.

In this Quick Lift, I’m breaking down the biggest takeaways from my conversation with Cherylanne Skolnicki about the peak of complexity, why capable women become the default person at work and at home, and how to start changing that without lowering your ambition or your standards.

You’ll learn:

• Why your old way of managing life may not work anymore
• How to spot the invisible load taking up your time, energy and headspace
• Why “I can do this” is different from “I should do this”
• The four things that make letting go hard: guilt, FOMO, judgment and control
• How to think about delegation differently
• Why a real boundary is something you can uphold
• The question to ask yourself: Am I uniquely qualified to do this?

The goal is not to overhaul your whole life. It’s to start getting more intentional about what actually needs to stay yours.

Full episode with Cherylanne

At some point, being the woman who can handle everything stops feeling impressive and starts feeling exhausting.

In this episode, I’m talking with Cherylanne Skolnicki, founder of Brilliant Balance, about what she calls the peak of complexity—that season when your career is demanding more, your family is demanding more, your ambition is still very much alive…and your available capacity is basically gone.

We talk about why the same operating system that helped us climb professionally eventually stops working, why so many women become the default person for everyone and everything, and why letting go can bring up guilt, judgment, FOMO and a whole lot of control issues.

Cherylanne also shares practical ways to start changing the pattern—without lowering your standards, losing your ambition or waiting for life to magically calm down.

You’ll learn:

• Why successful women hit a “peak of complexity”
• How to rethink your week when there’s no time left over for you
• The four emotions that make letting go so hard
• A better way to think about boundaries
• Why delegation usually feels harder before it gets easier
• How to decide what actually needs to be yours
• The question: “Am I uniquely qualified to do this?”

If you’ve built the career, the family and the full life—and you’re wondering why it still feels like too much—this one is for you.

Chapters

01:05 The Gen X Promise of “Having It All”

04:10 Why Cherylanne Left the Corporate Ladder

11:35 The Complexity Curve

14:30 When the Way You’ve Always Operated Stops Working

17:05 The Peak of Complexity

19:40 Why You Need a New Operating System

21:20 Treat Your Week Like Your Life in Miniature

24:15 Put Yourself Into the Week First

27:25 Becoming the Default Person for Everyone

29:15 Guilt, FOMO, Judgment and Control

31:55 Boundaries Other People May Not Like

34:25 Delegating Without Lowering Your Standards

36:25 Small Experiments That Create More Capacity

38:05 No One Is Coming to Save You

Links

Take this quiz: Discover What's Standing Between You and Where You Want to Be

Brilliant Balance

Instagram: Brilliant Balance

Instagram: Cherylanne

You are exhausted. You cannot sleep. Your anxiety feels higher. Your focus is off. And suddenly you are wondering why things that used to feel manageable now seem so much harder.

It might be stress.

But what if it is not just stress?

In this Quick Lift, Betsy shares the key takeaways from her conversation with Dr. Caissa Troutman about perimenopause, leadership and why women can mistakenly interpret very real symptoms as a loss of capability.

This is not a medical deep dive. It is the girlfriend version of what women need to know: what to pay attention to, why brain fog and poor sleep can affect confidence at work, when to seek support and why powering through is not always the answer.

You’ll learn:

• Why perimenopause symptoms are so easily mistaken for stress or burnout
• How poor sleep, anxiety and brain fog can affect confidence and credibility at work
• Why perimenopause often collides with some of women’s biggest career years
• Why “normal” does not mean you have to suffer
• What to pay attention to when something suddenly feels different
• How to find a provider who understands perimenopause
• Why you should get curious before deciding you are losing your edge
• How to think about support at work without feeling like you need to disclose everything

Perimenopause is common. It can affect your career. And it does not mean you are becoming less capable.

Links

Listen to the full episode

Connect with Dr. Troutman