If you’re an MD, CEO, or Business Owner and you’re repeating yourself, chasing for updates, or picking up work that should already be done, I get it.

You’ve got good people, but they get side-tracked, “common sense” isn’t always common, and you end up doing work that should be done by someone else. 

You’ve likely tried stepping back so people feel trusted, pushing a bit harder, or getting advice from an external consultant or someone who’s run a business before.

But it doesn’t move things forward, because most approaches are too complicated, too corporate, or don’t deal with what actually happens day to day in an SME.

What teams need is straightforward: clarity, simple follow-through, and leadership habits that make it easier for people to deliver — not more pressure, more meetings, or more training that doesn’t stick.

That’s the work I do with MDs and CEOs.

Together we focus on the three core parts that get results:

1. Results System — turning commercial priorities into day-to-day focus

2. Operational Execution — simple routines that keep work on track without you chasing

3. Human Leadership — conversations that land and get people moving

I’ve supported 150+ leaders across SMEs to get their teams delivering the right work, on time, without everything landing back on their plate. 

Within 12 weeks, most get back around a day a week.

If this sounds familiar, DM me “TEAM” and I’ll show you the first step.

You hired someone to take pressure off.

Now you're managing them too.

They came with experience.
A strong CV.
They said all the right things in the interview.

So you assumed they'd just... get on with it.

But three months in, they're still coming to you with questions.
Waiting for direction.
Not quite delivering what you expected.

And instead of having less on your plate, you've now got someone else to manage.

Here's what happened.

You hired for experience.
And didn't really onboard them.

You assumed:

→ They'd figure out how things work here
→ They'd know what good looks like in your business
→ They'd take ownership without being told

But experience doesn't transfer automatically.

Every business has different standards, priorities, and ways of working.

What "senior" meant in their last company might not match what you need here.

And without clear expectations, a proper handover, and early feedback, even capable people drift.

They're not incapable.
They're operating in a fog.

Here's what actually sets someone up to deliver:

1. Clear expectations and context
→ What does success look like in this role?
→ What are the standards we work to?
→ What decisions can they make without checking in?

2. Structured handover
→ Walk them through how things actually work
→ Introduce them properly to the people and systems they'll rely on
→ Don't assume they'll "pick it up"

3. Early feedback and course correction
→ Don't let issues build for months
→ Pick up on small things early
→ Have the conversations that clarify what's expected

Most MDs skip this because the new hire is "senior."

But seniority doesn't replace clarity.
If you don't set the remit, the standards, and the context early, you'll spend the next six months managing someone who should be managing themselves.

The person you hired to take pressure off becomes another thing on your plate.

And that's not their fault.
It's a gap in how they were brought in.

If you've got someone who's experienced but not quite delivering, it's not too late to reset.

One clear conversation about expectations can change the next three months.

What's one thing you thinks important when onboarding a senior hire?

♻️ Repost to help leaders set new hires up for success

➕ Follow Leanne Bridges for daily, practical leadership advice. For Founders, MDs, and CEOs who want a team that consistently delivers results.

Leanne  Bridges

MDs, CEOs & Owners of 10-200 person UK businesses → Teams who do what they’ve agreed, without you having to chase | Worked with 152 leaders

Minimalist graphic on a light cream background with bold black and orange text. It reads: “What’s obvious to you isn’t obvious to everyone else,” with the words “isn’t obvious” highlighted in orange. In the bottom right corner, the name “Leanne Bridges” appears in small black text. Clean, modern layout emphasising the message about assumptions and communication.

"It's quicker if I just tell them."

An MD said this to me after re-explaining a task for the third time.

I asked: "How much time are you spending on explanations, questions and rework?"

He paused.
"I don’t know, I bet it’s a lot of time."

Here's what was happening:
He’d have quick conversations and a task would shoot out the back of it.

"Sort that production issue."
"Update the sales report."
"Deal with that supplier."

Then he'd spend hours:
→ Fixing half-done work
→ Answering follow-up questions
→ Re-explaining what he thought was obvious

The problem wasn't that his team didn’t want to get on with things.

It was how he delegated.

When you delegate at speed, you're not saving time. You're borrowing it from tomorrow.

Here's how he changed that:

1/ He spent 2 extra minutes upfront

❌ Instead of: "Sort out that production issue"

✅ He was more specific: "Those quality issues on the morning shift need fixing. Review the last weeks data, identify the pattern, and bring me your recommended fix by the end of tomorrow."

Those 2 minutes saved hours of back-and-forth.

2/ He checked understanding, not agreement

❌ Instead of: "Make sense?"
✅ He asked: "Walk me through how you'll approach this"

He spotted gaps before they became problems.

3/ He gave context, not just tasks

❌ Instead of: "Update the sales report"
✅ He said: "Update the sales report - I need to look at our Q4 cash flow by Friday"

Context creates ownership.

A few months down the road:

✅ He was barely ever re-explaining a task
✅ His team took more initiative
✅ He got back more than a day a week

He didn't delegate less. 
He delegated smarter.

The lesson:

Slowing down your delegation speeds up your results.

Your team get it right first time. 
You stop being the bottleneck. 
Work gets done without you.

What's your best delegation tip?

♻️ Repost to help other leaders delegate clearly
➕ Follow Leanne Bridges for daily, practical leadership advice. For Founders, MDs, and CEOs who want a team that consistently delivers results.

Minimalist graphic on a light cream background. The words “Delegate in a hurry today.” appear at the top, highlighted with a rough orange brush stroke. Below, in black serif text, it reads: “Watch it come back half-done tomorrow.” The design is clean and uncluttered, using orange and black text to emphasise the message about rushed delegation leading to poor outcomes.

Your team being busy is costing you money.

I asked an MD running a 50-person engineering firm:

"What are your top 3 priorities this quarter?"

Silence.

He couldn't answer.

But he could tell me how busy everyone was.

Here's what "busy" actually meant in his business:

→ Ops fixing the same site problems every week
→ Managers dealing with back to back questions and meetings
→ Everyone drowning in emails

His team were working late. Stressed. Flat out.

But not delivering the right level of margin.

Because busy doesn't equal productive.

The real problem wasn't workload.

It was clarity.

When he asked his managers the same question
"What are your top 3 priorities?"
They couldn't answer either.

Because when everything's urgent, nothing is.

Here's what we did:

1. Identified the key outcomes for the quarter

2. Tested every task: "Does this move us toward that outcome?"

3. Challenged every "urgent" request: "What happens if we don't?"

12 weeks later:

✅ Same hours, better output
✅ Stress levels dropped
✅ Margins improved

They didn't work less. They put their effort in the right place. 

The lesson:

Busy teams don't grow businesses. Focused teams do.

If your team can't tell you their top 3 priorities, you don't have a workload problem.

You have a focus problem.

Can your team name their top 3 priorities right now?

---

If you're finding too much still lands back on you, even with a capable team:

I'm running free strategy calls this month to help MDs and CEOs get their teams focused and delivering consistently.

Book here: https://lnkd.in/ebHNguCz

It's the first week back.
Most leaders get this week completely wrong.

Dive straight into emails.
The work that piled up.
Whatever feels urgent.

And the team takes weeks to get back up to speed.

The first week back matters more than people realise.

How you use it impacts delivery, margins, and whether the quarter delivers what you expect it to.

Here are 3 things to do this week to get your team back on track:

1/ Get clear on what actually matters in Q1

Take 30 minutes to clarify the 3-5 priorities for the quarter in your own mind.

If everything's a priority, nothing is.

2/ Have a 15-minute conversation with each key person

Not a full performance review.

Just: "What are your priorities this month?" and "What do you need from me?"

It takes less time than you think and creates immediate focus for the month ahead.

3/ Set the pace for the week

Your energy sets the tone.

If you're scattered and reactive, your team will be too.

Show up clear, focused, and on the front foot.

Teams don't automatically get going after the holiday. They take their cue from you.

Start this week with intent.
You’ll see it in the results all quarter.

What's one thing you find helps you get going after time off?

♻️ Repost to help other leaders get their year off to a flying start.

➕ Follow Leanne Bridges for daily, practical leadership advice. For Founders, MDs, and CEOs who want a team that consistently delivers results.

The worst thing about micromanagement?
It works.

A founder recently confessed:
"I know I shouldn't be doing this...
but I just can't leave them to it."

He wasn't trying to control people.
He cared deeply about quality.
About his business. About getting things right.

But he was drowning in details.

↳ Still checking proposals
↳ Still rewriting documents
↳ Still chasing tasks he'd delegated weeks ago

He thought he was being a good leader by getting involved.

But really? He was scared.

Because deep down, he believed:

"If I don't check it, it won't be done properly."

That belief was costing him everything.

Not just the 15 hours a week spent on work others should own. 

But something worse:

His team had stopped trying.

→ Why bother perfecting something the boss will redo anyway?

→ Why take ownership when he'll swoop in regardless?

→ Why think strategically when he's already decided?

Every time he "helped," he sent a clear message:

"I don't trust you to get this right."

So they proved him right.

❌ They waited for him to fix things.

❌ They stopped pushing for quality.

❌ They became exactly what he feared.

The breakthrough came when he realised:

His team didn't need fixing.
His approach needed to change.

So, instead of diving into the details, he changed 3 things:

1/ He shared the outcome, not the method

"Have zero repeat issues from the same customer this month" not "Here's exactly how to handle this complaint"

2/ He let them find their own way

Even when it wasn't how he'd do it

3/ He coached instead of corrected

"What would make this stronger?" not "Let me fix that for you"

The shift took just 6 weeks.

But the results?

✅ His team started solving problems before he knew they existed.

✅ Quality didn't just maintain - it improved.

✅ And those 15 hours a week? Back in his calendar to actually work on his business.

The hardest part wasn't changing his team.

It was changing his belief.

From "They need me to check everything"

To "They're more capable than I'm letting them be"

Because micromanagement doesn’t just frustrate people.

It quietly teaches them to switch off.
And most of the time, no one intends to do it.

What belief do you think drives micromanagement most often?

♻️ Repost to help other leaders in your network

➕ Follow Leanne Bridges for daily, practical leadership advice. For Founders, MDs, and CEOs who want a team that consistently delivers results.

People issues are rarely urgent.

Until they start breaking everything else.

Busy leaders often push them down the list.

“Important, but not urgent.”
“We’ll deal with them once things settle.”
“We’ve got bigger priorities right now.”

That feels logical.
But people issues don’t wait politely in the background.

They leak.

→ Into missed deadlines.

→ Into the same problems cropping up again.

→ Into work that needs chasing instead of moving.

→ Into people escalating decisions instead of owning them.

→ Into decisions that never quite get made.


So leaders focus on the “real” business issues.

Revenue.
Delivery.
Sales.

Without realising those problems are often symptoms, not causes.

When the team isn’t working cleanly, the business leaks effort.

Time.
Energy.
Attention.

And you feel that leak every single day.

Not as one big problem.
But as constant drag.

The missed truth?

What gets labelled “people stuff” is often the thing quietly creating the problems leaders keep trying to fix.

Do people issues get pushed down the list when things are busy? 

♻️ Repost to help other leaders in your network

➕ Follow Leanne Bridges for daily, practical leadership advice. For Founders, MDs, and CEOs who want a team that consistently delivers results.

Do people issues get pushed down the list when things are busy?

The author can see how you vote. Learn more

I've interviewed over 3,000 people.

Most hiring mistakes are not about skills.

They happen when leaders miss the human behaviours that quietly undermine teams.

These are the four things I always listen for in interviews:

1.) Emotional judgement

↳ How do they respond when something goes wrong?
↳ Do they reflect, or immediately justify and deflect?

2.) How they work with others

↳ Do they talk about “we” or “I”?
↳ Will they own mistakes and share credit?

3.) Integrity under pressure

↳ Will they raise concerns when it’s uncomfortable?
↳ Or stay quiet to protect themselves?

4.) Reliability

↳ Do they take responsibility when things go wrong?
↳ Or explain why it wasn’t really their fault?

A CV tells you what someone knows.
Conversation reveals how they operate.

And that’s usually what determines whether they strengthen the team… or slowly drain time, energy and trust.

Curious — which of these causes you the most problems when it’s missing?

♻️ Share this to help other leaders build stronger teams.
➕ Follow Leanne Bridges for more leadership insights

Can skills be taught more easily than behaviour?

Most teams aren’t overloaded.

They’re losing time.

One MD told me:
“We’re flat out. We need another person.”

So we mapped what was actually happening day to day.

As it turns out, they weren’t short on headcount.

They were losing hours to things like:

→ Work taking too long because the brief wasn’t tight
→ Senior people doing work that should’ve been done by juniors
→ Back-and-forth between teams because people weren’t aligned
→ Jobs being started before the right info was in place
→ “Quick questions” that aren’t quick when you add them up

So hiring wouldn’t have fixed it.

It would’ve just added another salary into the same situation.

What fixed it was:

1/ Clarifying priorities (so effort went into the right things)

2/ Tightening handovers (so work got done right first time)

3/ Coaching managers to manage the work (not do it)

Within weeks, the pressure eased.

And time stopped being lost.

Hiring doesn’t help overloaded teams.

It just makes wasted time more expensive.

If you’ve got a capable team but too much still feels hard work, this is exactly what I cover in my free masterclass:

How MDs and CEOs Build Teams That Deliver (so work doesn’t keep landing back on you).

DM me “DELIVER” and I’ll send you the link.

If you could fix one thing to reduce wasted time, what would it be?

MEET LEANNE ► High Performance Specialist for CEO's, Business Owners & C-suite. I'm best known for my ability to support high-achievers to reach their true potential, dial up their impact, and achieve success and fulfilment in business & life.  I help entrepreneurs and leaders to quickly find the real reason they're not getting the results they want & make rapid change, so they achieve their aspirations.

After a 30-year career as an Executive Leader & HR Director, and an experienced Master Neuro-Linguistic & High Performance Coach, I'm well qualified to support you

MY CLIENTS ► Business Owners & Leaders come to me frustrated as they've too much to do, feel overstretched & are fed up with distractions taking them away from making progress.  They know they can achieve more but they find themselves overthinking things or second guessing themselves or feeling like they're not doing enough/the right thing & that's exhausting

LIMITLESS SUCCESS ACADEMY ► Learn how to operate at your full potential and become everything you're capable of being in work and life. Get crystal clear on your goals and purpose, become mentally strong in any situation and super-charge your productivity & results. This online, on-demand course is the most comprehensive, in-depth programme available. With 12 bite size modules, learn the simple system to unlock your full potential & take your results to the next level. The programme also includes two live workshops per month with Leanne, as well as peer support via our online community. For only £97 per month, this is accessible to every entrepreneur and leader out there! You can join us by visiting www.successmindset.uk to find out more.

RESULTS COACHING PROGRAMME ► Premium option (limited) - work one-to-one with Leanne on Business, Leadership or Peak Performance Mastery. Apply here: https://calendly.com/leannebridges/apply

LET'S TALK ► Message me on LinkedIn. Email me at leanne@leannebridges.com. Or if Self-Doubt is something you're struggling with then here's a link to download a 15-minute video guide to putting it away for good: https://go.leannebridges.com/overcome-doubt

SPECIALITIES ► CEO Coaching; Executive Coaching; Results Coaching; High Performance, Leadership Development; Business Coaching; Self-Mastery; High Performing Teams, Strategic Leadership

RESULTS ► Testimonials are available on my website www.leannebridges.com

OUTSIDE OF WORK ► Seriously average tennis player, I love to travel, if I'm not supporting clients you'll find me in Europe. I love a thought provoking debate and I've a dry sense of humour.

taplio

Leanne Bridges's Linkedin Analytics

Leanne Bridges

Performance ScoreLeanne Bridges's LinkedIn Performance

What is Leanne talking about?

Leanne Bridges's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?