What Every Team Needs From Their Manager

Last episode, we talked about what your boss needs to see from you. This episode flips the view.

Whether you lead a team or you're on one, understanding what a team needs from their manager changes how you show up on both sides of that relationship.

In this episode, Leslie Ferry unpacks two of the most common and costly misreads between managers and their teams and what to do about both.

You'll hear about:

• How your natural orientation, whether you lead with the work or the relationship first, shapes how you land with people wired differently from you. And what to do about it without changing who you are.
• The altitude difference. How big picture thinkers and detail-needs thinkers misread each other constantly, and what each one actually needs to do their best work.
• What the gap costs when a manager leads everyone the same way they'd want to be led.
• The shift from asking "why isn't my team delivering" to asking "am I communicating in a way that lands for how each person is wired."
• The short game. One question to ask yourself before your next interaction with a team member you find yourself puzzled by.
• The long game. How The Performance Loop turns a single insight about your team into the kind of leadership that actually develops people.

Experience The Wiring Gap™ yourself — free, about ten minutes, no signup required.

zandra.app/wiringgap

Transcript

Welcome back to the Career Edge, where we unpack how work actually works. I'm Leslie Ferry. Last episode, we talked about bosses, specifically what they need to see from us and how to show it in a way that lands for them through their lens, not ours. Today, we're flipping the view because the same wiring gap that exists between team members and a boss exists between a boss and every person on a team.

just in the opposite direction. As a manager, the cost of that gap is multiplied. It doesn't just affect your career, it affects your teammates as well. Here's something that might surprise some of us when we become managers.

things that make us effective, the way we process information, make decisions, move work forward,

can be the exact thing that can cause us to misread different individuals on our team. Not because we're doing anything wrong, because we're wired differently.

One of the biggest misreads is how we orient ourselves to work. Whether we lead with the work itself and what it's designed to achieve or relationships first. Some managers lead with the work, results, outcomes, deadlines, deliverables. Relationships are absolutely important, but they're built through the work itself. Get the work right and trust follows. Some managers lead with the relationship. Connections comes first.

is doing, what they need, what's getting in their way. Their view is work moves better when the relationship is solid first. Neither is right or wrong, just different wiring. But here's where the misread happens.

a task first manager can land as cold or indifferent.

to a team member who needs connection before they can fully engage. A relationship first manager can read as unfocused or even disengaged to a team member who wants to get straight to the work. But understanding how your natural orientation lands for people wired differently, that's the first step to leading them well. This doesn't mean you'll change who you are. You'll enhance your knowledge about others to identify how to best connect with

motivate, inspire, and lead each team member. Here's another dimension that creates some of the most common and costly misreads on Teams. How people process information, and more specifically, the level of detail they need to do their best work.

Think about the people on your team. Some of them operate at altitude. They think in outcomes, direction, and possibility. They see where things are going, and they're energized by inspiring people around the vision. Details can drain them, not because they don't care about the outcome, but because that level of thinking pulls them away from where they naturally add the most value. They trust others will figure out how the machine works. That trust is genuine.

And it's a strength. Others seem to come down from altitude before they can move. They think in specifics, sequences, and completeness. They need to understand how something works every step, every dependency, every potential obstacle, before they feel confident moving forward. That thoroughness isn't hesitation. It's how they protect quality and make sure nothing falls through the cracks. That's the strength.

too both of these people are on your team and they're reading each other and reading you through completely different lenses. Here's what that looks like in practice. The altitude thinker is a manager. You set direction clearly. You paint the picture of where you're going and why it matters. You trust your team to figure out how to get there

Because figuring out the how is exactly where you trust them to be stronger than you. But to your detailed needs, team member, that in land is incomplete. Like the thinking hasn't been done. Like they're being set up to fail because they don't have all they need to execute well.

not resistant to your vision. They need the bridge between the vision and the execution.

more of the why, more of the constraints,

more of what good looks like when they arrive. When you can give them that without feeling like it pulls you too far into the weeds, you'll find that they execute with precision and thoroughness that makes your vision actually land the way you all intended.

Now let's look at the detailed needs thinker as a manager. You set direction carefully. You think through it completely before you communicate. You give your team the full picture, the context, the reasoning, the specifics, because that's what you would need to do your best work. But to your altitude team member, that can land as overwhelming or slow, like the decision has already been made before they had a chance to help shape it.

Like there's no room to figure things out their own way. They're not dismissing your thoroughness. They just need the destination more than the full map to get started. Then they need time to go map it out. What they need from you isn't less rigor. It's permission to move before every detail is resolved. A clear outcome, the most important constraints, and the confidence that you trust them to navigate the rest. When you can give them that,

without feeling like you're cutting corners, you'll find they move with the speed and energy that gets to the destination faster than most likely either of you expected. Now here's what's important to understand about all of this. Your team isn't one type and neither are you.

these orientations and processing styles show up on a spectrum.

and they shift depending on the situation, the stakes, and the relationship. The goal isn't to categorize your team.

goal is to get curious, to notice when someone isn't moving the way you expect, and ask yourself whether the gap might be in your different wiring. The wiring gap is completely closeable once you can see it.

Here's the shift worth making. Most managers ask, why isn't my team delivering what I need? The question worth asking instead is, am I communicating in a way that lands for how each person on my team is wired? Or am I leading everyone the same way I want to be led? Those are different questions. And the second one is where the real leadership work lives.

Think about one person on your team right now who you find yourself puzzled by or maybe even frustrated with. Before your next interaction, ask yourself one question. Is the information I'm about to communicate with them what I need or what they need to receive direction, feedback, and clarity from me? That question, practice consistently, starts closing the gap. But here's the longer game.

Understanding how your team is wired is the intelligence part of the journey. Reflecting on how your leadership is landing for each person and adjusting deliberately based on what you notice is what turns knowledge into the kind of leadership that connects with and develops people.

That's the performance loop. Intelligence times reflection times adjustment equals growth. And that's exactly what Zandra is built to guide you through personally in the context of your own work and your own team. Zandra.app forward slash wiring gap. Thanks for listening to the Career Edge. I'll see you next time.