The Cost of Constant Oversight: How Empowering Managers Gives Time Back to Senior Leaders
About the Author
Ashley Fina is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Oxygen. As a former CEO who led her company through a successful exit, she now advises high-growth businesses on how to scale through stronger management. At Oxygen, she draws on decades of leadership and coaching experience to help companies turn their managers into high-impact operators. Follow her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyfina
Key takeways from this article:
Senior leaders are losing valuable time to tactical issues
Executives spend up to 30% of their time solving problems that well-trained managers should handle independently.Constant oversight drains both executives and managers
When leaders intervene too often, it signals a lack of trust and undermines manager confidence and engagement.Untrained managers contribute to missed strategic opportunities
When executives are stuck in the weeds, they can't focus on growth, innovation, or vision-setting.Empowering managers improves autonomy and performance
Providing leadership training builds confidence, clarity, and problem-solving skills at the manager level.Cohort-based programs foster stronger, self-sufficient managers
Managers who learn in structured peer environments gain real-time insights, support, and lasting leadership skills.
The Cost of Constant Oversight: How Empowering Managers Gives Time Back to Senior Leaders
When you're the CEO of a rapidly growing company, managing a team that’s scaling quickly and moving fast can be draining. While your focus should be on setting the company’s vision, pursuing new business opportunities, and driving growth, instead, your days are filled being pulled into endless meetings. Whether it’s with managers who need help navigating team conflicts, making decisions on performance issues, or figuring out how to handle day-to-day challenges - by the end of the day, your energy is drained from solving hundreds of small problems. Problems that - let’s face it - your managers should be able to handle without you.
By the end of the week, you’re exhausted and realize you’ve spent hours on issues that should have been managed at a lower level. While your intention is to support your team, it’s clear that you're spending too much time in the weeds — time that could have been used for strategic decisions and growth opportunities. This is the unfortunate reality for many senior leaders who feel the weight of managing not just their own responsibilities but the constant questions and challenges that managers should be handling independently.
This kind of “constant oversight” is draining, not only for you but for your managers, who may feel that they’re not trusted or empowered to solve problems on their own. It creates a cycle that stifles both personal growth for managers and strategic progress for the business. So, how do you break this cycle? The answer lies in empowering your managers through targeted, cohort-based training programs that provide them with the tools and confidence they need to step up, solve problems independently, and lighten the load for senior leadership.
The Executive Drain: 3 Hidden Costs of Undertrained Managers
Time Wasted on Operational Problems
For senior executives, time is your most precious resource. Every hour spent managing routine team challenges or firefighting issues is a minute you’re not dedicating to the long-term strategy of the company. According to a McKinsey & Company report, senior leaders in mid-sized companies spend up to 30% of their time dealing with problems that could easily be delegated to managers. This time spent on tactical decisions — rather than focusing on growth and innovation — is a missed opportunity to drive your business forward.
When your managers aren’t trained to handle these day-to-day issues on their own, you’re forced to step in and provide solutions, even for minor problems. This means you're stuck in an endless cycle of reactive management, unable to focus on what truly matters: setting direction, building relationships, and scaling your company.
McKinsey & Company found that senior leaders at mid-sized organizations often spend disproportionate amounts of time dealing with team-level problems. The cost? Unused leadership potential and missed strategic opportunities.Diminished Manager Morale and Engagement
When senior leaders constantly intervene, it’s not just a drain on time — it also impacts morale. Managers who aren't equipped with the right skills may feel disempowered or inadequate when they can't handle issues independently. The constant need for validation or intervention from senior leadership sends a subtle message that they’re not trusted to lead. This can lead to disengagement, frustration, and burnout.
The Gallup State of the Global Workplace report emphasizes that employees are most engaged when they feel empowered to make decisions and trusted by their leaders. When you’re pulled into every small issue, it erodes that sense of trust and ownership. As a result, managers may feel like they’re not growing in their roles, and the business suffers as their productivity decreases.
Gallup reinforces the point that empowering your leaders to act autonomously is crucial for fostering engagement and driving long-term performance.Missed Strategic Opportunities
Every time an executive gets pulled into a routine managerial problem, a critical opportunity slips away. According to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends report, companies that allow senior leadership to focus on high-level strategy consistently outperform their competitors. When leaders are mired in operational decisions, they miss out on the bigger picture — from identifying growth opportunities to exploring new business models.
As your time gets eaten up by day-to-day issues, you’re left with less bandwidth to shape the company’s direction. The result? A stalled organization, lacking the agility to pivot and scale at the pace required to remain competitive. It’s a cycle that every business owner wants to break, but it requires an intentional shift toward empowering your managers to take on more responsibility.
Deloitte reveals that organizations where senior leaders focus on strategic, big-picture decisions are more likely to experience faster growth.
How Empowering Managers Frees Up Senior Leaders
Now, let’s flip the script. Instead of senior leaders stepping in to solve every problem, imagine a scenario where managers can handle those challenges independently, leaving executives to focus on driving the business forward. How do you create that environment? By investing in a well-structured, cohort-based management training program that empowers your managers with the skills they need to succeed. Here are 3 ways to empower your senior managers and get your time back.
Provide Targeted Leadership Training
Many organizations promote top performers into managerial roles, but the skills needed to manage people are vastly different from those required to perform individual tasks. That's why training programs are essential. Specialized training can teach managers how to handle team dynamics, navigate difficult conversations, and solve operational problems without needing executive intervention.
Programs like Oxygen’s cohort-based training help managers develop both the tactical and emotional intelligence required for effective leadership. By participating in structured learning alongside peers, managers can gain critical insights, build new skills, and receive ongoing feedback — all of which prepare them to handle team-level issues independently.
This investment in training not only helps managers grow but also improves the business's overall performance. Research shows that organizations that invest in leadership development experience a 1.4-2.2 times higher revenue growth compared to those that don’t.
Corporate Leadership Council shows that when managers are trained and empowered, companies experience higher levels of revenue growth, employee engagement, and organizational success.Shift Focus From Tactical to Strategic
Once managers are equipped with the right skills, they can take on routine tasks without constant guidance. This frees up senior leadership to focus on the high-level, strategic decisions that truly move the business forward.
Training programs that focus on real-world scenarios and provide ongoing support empower managers to make confident decisions. This shift allows senior leaders to focus on innovation, partnerships, and long-term strategy — areas where their expertise is best leveraged.
By empowering your managers to lead confidently, you build a sustainable management layer that supports the company’s growth without draining senior leadership’s time. This approach creates a balance between tactical execution and strategic focus — the foundation for long-term success.Foster a Self-Sufficient Leadership Pipeline
A well-trained manager is a self-sufficient manager. Through continuous development, they build the skills necessary to handle team issues, delegate tasks, and make decisions independently. This creates a management layer that doesn’t rely on senior leadership for every minor problem, which in turn allows the company to operate more smoothly and efficiently.
Creating a self-sufficient leadership pipeline doesn’t happen overnight, but cohort-based programs give managers the confidence they need to handle tough situations and improve team performance. As this management layer strengthens, senior leaders can shift their focus from firefighting to growing the business, knowing that their teams are in capable hands.
Why Cohort-Based Learning Works
Unlike traditional, one-off training programs, cohort-based learning provides ongoing opportunities for managers to learn and grow in a supportive, collaborative environment. Participants share challenges, exchange insights, and work together to solve real-time problems. This dynamic learning process creates stronger leaders who can make better decisions and have a tangible impact on business performance.
By encouraging peer-to-peer learning, cohort-based programs foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement. Managers leave these programs with a network of peers, a toolkit of solutions, and the confidence to take on more responsibility without needing constant support from senior leadership.
Train Managers. Free Leaders.
The cost of constantly overseeing undertrained managers is not just a drain on time — it also affects morale, engagement, and ultimately, business performance. When senior leaders are constantly pulled into operational problems, they lose valuable time that could be spent focusing on high-level strategies that drive the company’s future.
By investing in cohort-based training, companies can empower their managers to lead independently, which not only improves team performance but also allows senior leaders to focus on what they do best: driving growth and innovation.
It’s time to stop treating managers as bottlenecks and start treating them as the leaders they are. When you invest in their development, you not only build a stronger leadership team, but you also ensure that your organization is set up for long-term success.
Learn more about Oxygen’s cohort-based training programs by talking with one of our experts today.