Our Head of Customer Success was great when managing a team of five, but now that we have scaled and she has to manage three managers who lead thirty people, she is micromanaging everyone and burning out. How do we help her scale or determine if she is in the wrong seat?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a company grows, seats on the Accountability Chart change dramatically. Your Head of Customer Success has transitioned from a manager of individual contributors to a manager of managers. This is a massive shift in cognitive and conative demands. To determine if she can scale, you must evaluate her using the GWC™ tool: does she Get it, Want it, and have the Capacity to do it?

Capacity is where most leaders hit their ceiling. Managing managers requires a shift from doing and directing to coaching, systemizing, and delegating.

To diagnose the issue and build a path forward, take these three actions.

First, clearly define her new seat on the Accountability Chart. Explicitly list the five major roles. Her roles must shift from solving customer issues to building leadership capability in her managers and tracking department-wide metrics.

Second, look at her Kolbe profile. If she is a high Fact Finder and low Follow Through, she will naturally dive into the details and struggle to build the repeatable training systems her managers need. You must help her delegate the system-building or pair her with an assistant who can document the processes.

Third, set a firm ninety-day window. Give her clear, measurable Rocks focused on coaching her managers and stepping out of the daily ticket queue. If she cannot stop micromanaging or continues to burn out, she does not have the capacity for this larger seat. You must transition her to an individual contributor seat or find a new leader, because keeping her there will stunt your entire customer support operation.