Manage Vs Develop

You can run a tight ship and still be building a fragile company. That’s the uncomfortable truth we wrestle with as we break down one of the most important leadership distinctions in business: managing people versus developing people. Management keeps today moving with schedules, budgets, and problem-solving. Development creates tomorrow by growing confidence, skill, and decision-making so the team can lead without you needing to be the constant answer machine.

We talk through the real tension every owner, manager, parent, and coach feels: urgency versus importance. It’s faster to do it yourself, but that speed quietly creates dependency. I share the mindset shift that changed how I lead at TC Backer Construction, plus the simple question that flips the room from silent to engaged: “What do you think?” Used consistently, it turns followers into thinkers, helps introverted team members speak up, and builds a culture where responsibility is earned through trust.

From there we get practical: how to teach instead of rescue, why some mistakes are expenses while others become investments, and how to correct with dignity while still holding a high bar. We also dig into SOP documentation, succession, and legacy leadership, because the real win is a company that keeps growing due to leaders existing, not just systems existing.

If this hits home, subscribe, share it with a leader who’s building a team, and leave a review so more people find the show. Which impacted you more: a boss who managed you or a leader who developed you?

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Transcript

Housekeeping And Anniversary Celebrations

Ty Cobb Backer 0:00

Episode 341. What's the difference between managing people and developing people?

SPEAKER_01 0:08

We have a kind of a belief system that either we're gonna push you up, we're gonna push you out.

Ty Cobb Backer 0:12

I don't want to be around five other people that aren't pushing themselves to succeed.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Success isn't about taking, but giving value first. Compensationally follows contribution always. This is true authenticity. It's the truth. Every week this is our story. We share with you our journey. We share with you our scars. Please welcome your host, Ty Cobb Backer.

Ty Cobb Backer 0:34

Hey, hey, hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Behind the Tool Belt. I am Ty Backer. And as always, I appreciate you taking a little time out of your day to invest in yourself. Now, a little housekeeping. We may be having some technical difficulties. I just thought I would forewarn you now. Our Wi-Fi has been acting really strange today. It literally just came back on, probably 10 minutes before we decided to smash the live button. So I thought I'd let you know that out of the gate here. And also I want to give a big shout out to our TC Backer team. Last night, yesterday was a huge milestone for us here at headquarters. We celebrated, we are celebrating through the month of July into August, August 7th, actually for the remainder of the year, screw it. We're going to be celebrating our 18th anniversary of the establishment of TC Backer Construction LLC. Super pumped about that. It doesn't feel like 18 years. I don't really necessarily feel like it's been. Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes not. But not only was yesterday our 17th, 818th anniversary, we also got to attend the best of the best gala, the best of

Awards Win And Higher Standards

Ty Cobb Backer 2:20

York County, the best of Lebanon County, the best of Adams County, Hanover. And our team brought home the trophy. And what I mean by the trophy, five years running now, we are those areas. Number one, roofing contractor. Now, the reason why I brought Lebanon up, even though it wasn't mentioned last night, the local IQ, the USA Today, our local newspaper, local IQ, and USA Today own just about every single newspaper company in the country. So they also own the Lebanon Times or whatever it's called. So they they ran us up there to be the people's choice for a roofing contractor. Mind you, that's probably a good 60 miles away from us. And we didn't even know what was going on. I mean, we literally wouldn't even have had an opportunity to vote. However, our reach must have spoken for itself. Our reputation, I hope, preceded us, and Lebanon County voted us also. And I don't even think our team that attended the the gala last night knew knows knew that that was even happened, but it did. It is, it happened. We also got the number one roofing contractor in that area as well. And I don't know what other awards we may have received, but I do know the roofing. We love roofing, and that's why that is the most important one. The the company who used to always get it is another local company who's been in business. Shoot, I want to say close to 75 years. It has changed hands, different ownership, three different times over the years. They they were the number one roofing contractor in our area up until five years ago. And you know, I I looked at it like this. If we didn't win this year's number one roofing contractor, I I was gonna be super okay with that. And and let me tell you why. That would have that would be the that would actually be the bigger win. Okay, and why that is, that means that they worked super hard, twice as hard, three times as hard as we did, which means they became a better company. They, they, they provided more value, they took care of more homeowners than we would have had, which raises the bar, the standard for our roofing community here locally for us, which means we would have had to work even twice as hard, if not five times as hard next year to regain that title. However, that didn't happen, but I do know that they worked super hard because, like I said, they're local. I know I see their name out there, I know our team goes up against them quite often, and we we ended up pulling it out once again this year. So five years in a row. Not only did we win that award, we won the best home improvement, home remodeler. I'm not 100% certain on this one, but we did receive the the certificate because the trophies, the awards, the actual uh, I don't know what the hell it is. It's like a crystal plaque type of thing that we normally receive in about you know four to eight weeks afterwards because they'll have to make them and they don't even know. They're they're like kind of like so nobody knows until it's announced who actually win. So I guess once all of the votes go in and the names are called, then the the names go over to whoever's designing the trophy. So so we won those two, which are a pretty big deal. And I know our team works seven days a week to to accommodate you know everybody and provide as much value and have as much impact as is possible on everybody that that gives us a call or anybody that we're trying to help out. And then, but the other one, which was kind of that's probably a 50-50, but I can tell you this we were runner-up for best place to work, at least got the runner-up. So we out of out of all the companies in in York and Adams County, Hanover, okay, York and Hanover, not Adams, we're definitely runner-up for best place to work. And then we brought home the one that probably so not I don't even want to say surprised me the most, but but probably I hold near and dear and want to personally thank our team for for putting my name in the hat. And I got the the best boss. So thank you so much. That in itself, that might be the best award yet for me personally. The second best and probably the best for our company in a whole would be the the roofing one. So thank you guys. Thank you for all the hard work that you guys do. And and if you don't catch it on the live, I will definitely make my rounds today to to thank everybody. I've been kind of busy this morning to do that, but we're not gonna be humble, nor will we hide. Every mofo in York County will know that we are the number one roofing contractor out of the 470,000 people that live in York

Food Insecurity And Local Responsibility

Ty Cobb Backer 8:10

County. Okay, and I know that for a fact that there's 470 people, 470,000 people, because we just did a statistic statistical uh data search on how many people live here and how many of those people suffer from food insecurity. And that number would be 55,000 local residents here in New York County, number two in South Central for people suffering from food insecurity. We're number two, York County is number two next to Lancaster County, which is right across the river here. Lancaster County is the number one, but York County is number two. So, anyhow, so getting back to our scheduled program here, I just wanted to get that out of the way. And and because sometimes I start running my mouth and I'll forget um what the hell it is we were talking about, like I just did there for a second. So whether you're listening on on your drive to work, sitting in your office, you know, waiting before a meeting or or walking the dog or wrapping up for from a long day, thank you, thank you for being here week in and week out. You know, this

Managing Vs Developing People

Ty Cobb Backer 9:25

podcast has always been more than just roofing construction business. It's it has been a lot about personal development and leadership. It's been about building, you know, better companies by building better people. Okay, so so today's topic is one that has challenged me for years. And and I've continuously worked on it. And it's it's it has a lot to do with leadership, and and we've kind of took taken a little break from using the word leader and leadership and stuff like that. However, we've been talking a lot about personal development, how to make decisions while under you know pressure, leading through storms and and and all kinds of stuff. And that's all leadership stuff without actually saying leadership, but but today we're we're gonna be kind of specific about you know the difference between managing people and and developing people. And at first glance, they almost sound sound the same, but they're not. I would say one focuses on on getting today's work completed, the other one focuses on preparing people for tomorrow. And if if if you're a business owner, a manager, a supervisor, a parent, a coach, or or anyone responsible for for leading another person, this conversation I would say is for you. Okay. So just about everybody out there in the world, this one's gonna be for you. And and this has been from my personal experiences up until uh up till yesterday. Some of my thoughts that went into this were some things I actually got to experience yesterday in a meeting. Unfortunately, Vic had to run out quick, but we we still held our little, it's not little, but our marketing makeover. We like to come up with names for our meetings, or maybe I do. I don't know, I just kind of like it. But because someday every one of us will leave our position, okay. So the the real question is is what what are we going to leave behind? Okay. And don't get me wrong, managing managing is is necessary, okay. Management gets results, development creates leaders, okay. And it and it and it's kind of sometimes I it's it's funny. It it this I watched it happen and unfold yesterday. Okay, so so let me let me be clear about that. Okay, companies need managers, okay. Projects need managed, schedules need managed, budgets need managed, okay. Without management of some kind, things would become chaotic. Okay. Management asks questions like did we hit our numbers? Did the project finish on time? Did did everyone show up on time? Are we staying on budget? Those questions matter, okay, and sometimes they're not even asked enough. But development asks a completely different set of questions, okay? And this might sound kind of corny, but these are things that that have gone through my mind quite a few times over the year, sometimes stronger than others, depends on where I'm at and what season I'm going through. But I've asked myself this question like, who grew today? Okay, who became more confident? Who learned new skills? Who's becoming capable of doing what only I used to do? Okay, that's leadership. Okay, management keeps the machine running, developing development builds the people who someday someday will will run the machine. Huge difference, big, big difference. Okay. One of

Urgency Vs Importance In Delegation

Ty Cobb Backer 13:55

the hardest things about I feel about leadership is is the tension between urgency and importance. Okay. Urgency says, I'll just do it myself. And I don't know how many times I ran things like that and how many years I ran business like that. And and and important says, I'm gonna teach someone, some someone else how to do this, okay? Or I'm gonna let them in. I'm gonna let them in on this. I'm gonna give them a little bit to do. Okay, so I don't have to do it all. If if you're anything like me, you've probably caught yourself saying it's faster if I handle it myself. Yeah, well, maybe today. Okay, but what happens tomorrow, the next week, and next year? Okay. Unfortunately for me, that took me probably the good five years of being in business, and really up until nine years into business where I really started to settle in and start feeling comfortable, but I still had to do a lot of personal development before I felt like I could truly hand things over to somebody and trust them. And a lot of that had to do with my self-confidence. How did I feel about myself? Was I insecure? Was I full of fear? Did I feel threatened that these people were smarter than me? You know, all of these things that a lot of times we can't even put our finger on of why we don't necessarily want to delegate to somebody else. And a lot of it just has to do with trust. Okay. So if every answer still has to come from me, okay, I created dependency. And we've talked about this before. I had a great team, but they were just waiting outside my door, waiting for me to tell them what direction to go in. And later on, I realized that's not leadership. Okay. One of the biggest mind shifts I ever had, that was the biggest mind shift that I've ever had to realize. Okay, my job isn't to become more valuable. My job was was to make other people more valuable because if our team is growing, the company grows. If if the people grow, our capacity grows. Okay, leadership isn't about being needed forever, it's about making yourself less needed over time. And I got to experience, I got to experience this, and I've really been looking at where this has been taking place. And a good example was Vic took the reins on the pop-up. I wasn't even at the very first pop-up. I showed up late to the second pop-up, and it was already set up. People were already donating. I didn't even need to be there. Okay. A lot of us, I feel like, fall into like a like a like a certain trap. I think, I think, I think all of us at some point in time, and and someone someone has to ask a question, okay. Instead of teaching somebody something, we just answer the question, we just do it ourselves. Instead of coaching, okay, we just solve the problem. Okay. Instead of asking questions, we just give instructions, okay? And I I never knew how paralyzing that was when I said, simply said, get out of the way, I'll do it myself. Whether I said that or not, my actions showed that. Get out of the way. One, I'm taking trust away from them. They they no longer trust that I trust them to do the job efficiently. Okay. And that is the worst thing. I didn't even know I was doing it. I thought I was being a big dog. I was being a big, I was being the leader, right? And pushing everybody out of the way and just doing it myself or not even asking for help. A lot of these charitable events that we used to do, that we still do today, I would not ask for help. It wasn't even that long ago. And honestly, I didn't realize how almost selfish and self-centered that was. And I wasn't, I wasn't doing it because I wanted to take the credit. I I feel like I I maybe thought that I didn't want to ask for help. I was too, I was too not humble, but I was too naive. I was too shoot. I can't even think of the word. Can't even think of the word. Not even naive. I was too something to even ask for help, too, not even arrogant. My ego wasn't even my ego. I was too stupid to ask for help to to load up all the turkey pots, to wash all the turkey pots, to run around and fill up all the protein. I was I was killing myself. You know, and then there for the longest time too, we didn't even want to ask for outside donations. And again, and we all I think we I had everyone convinced it was a great idea not to ask because we didn't know for sure if they were gonna help us or not. But now it seems like we have almost too much help, which is fine, which is great, because then we get to actually impact more people. Like I didn't see that back then. The more people that we have help us, the more people we actually get to impact, the less work we have to do because the message is getting out there even further, because we're allowing more people to participate. Wow. Wow, what a freaking concept. I it never occurred to me. It never occurred to me how I we were stunting our growth for impact. Sorry, I kind of went off on a little tangent there. My throat got sore. Oh, I was gut laughing last night, bro. Okay, I was gut laughing last night. Busted, dude. We had so much freaking fun last night. I wish we could have invited everybody to that thing, boy, because I was on fire. We all were. Ben had me freaking rolling those videos you were taking. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Oh, I got one of Pete dancing.

Ty Cobb Backer 20:27

Man, dude, I was dying, bro. Like, I couldn't even get a word out. Like, I was just I was like gut laughing. Gut. Needed that.

unknown 20:36

Yeah.

Ty Cobb Backer 20:38

Okay. So managing is is necessary. Okay. It is. But you know, and there's a time to, okay, if the building is on fire, yes, I need to show everybody and I need to lead where the exit is. Okay. But most days I feel like we're just dealing with situations that are teachable moments. Okay. And one of the greatest leadership questions I have ever asked, and this is what I mean by asking questions and not giving answers.

“What Do You Think” Builds Thinkers

Ty Cobb Backer 21:15

Okay. Just to clear that up. And I got this from Craig Gershell. Okay. Is what do you think? And I got to watch this. And when you ask somebody that question at first, you don't necessarily see the light bulb go off, but there's there's a certain individual, a couple individuals that I got to experience yesterday, that I've asked them that question so much that I noticed in our meeting yesterday, all I had to do was look at them. Okay, let that sink in. Okay. So instead of me sitting there running the meeting and coming up with all these great ideas on what our marketing efforts are going to be, I've asked the group, what's next? What do You think enough that I didn't even have to ask a certain individual that was sitting off to my right, and she came up with this amazing freaking idea. Amazing idea that we're gonna launch probably at the end of Q3 and the Q4 and the Q1. Amazing. And mind you, both of these people that were sitting down at the end of the table are, I guess, would be considered introverted. Don't talk much, could sit in a meeting the whole entire time and would not say a word. Today, all I have to do is look at them, and they have the full confidence and trust in me that I'm going to hear every single word that they say. And probably seven chances out of 10, we're gonna go with their idea. And the other 3% or 30% of the time, okay, if it was 10, 70% of the time, we're gonna go with what they say. The other 30% of the time, we're not gonna not necessarily not do their idea, but we're gonna tweak it. We're gonna go with their idea, but we're gonna go, we're gonna approach it in a different way. So one of the most powerful questions, okay, that you can ask somebody, okay, that's on your team, your child, a student, somebody that you're coaching is what do you think? Okay, that question changes every freaking thing. Okay. I wish I'd have known this sooner. So because instead of creating followers, okay, we begin to create thinkers. All right. Instead of dependence, we're creating confidence. Instead of waiting for instructions, people begin making decisions, and that's exactly what every growing company needs. Okay, we need to teach people how to think.

Teach Skills Then Let Mistakes Teach

Ty Cobb Backer 24:00

I heard a quote years ago and it stuck with me. Okay, and and this applies to a couple of different things, but this also applies to leadership. Okay, if you give a man a fish, you will feed him for a day. If you teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime, leadership works exactly the same way. Don't just solve today's estimate. Teach someone how to estimate. Okay, don't just answer the customer's complaint. Teach someone how to communicate, don't just close the deal for them. Teach someone how to build trust. Okay. Don't just fix the mistakes. Teach someone how to recognize the mistake before it even happens. That's development. And yes, it takes longer. It's gonna take longer. But believe me, the sooner you start doing this, the better off you're gonna be, and the better off they're gonna be, which means okay. I thought we were gonna do you hear me, Hesitate. The sooner the quality of the company can improve, it'll pay dividends forever. Okay, and don't get me wrong, mistakes, mistakes can be expensive, okay. Unless they're lessons, okay. One thing that I've learned over the years is people are going to make mistakes, including myself, okay, including me. Okay. In fact, I've made enough mistakes for an entire leadership team. But but here's the difference. Okay, some mistakes become expenses, others become investments. Okay, I'm gonna say that again. Some mistakes become expenses, others, other mistakes become investments. The difference is whether someone learns from them. I've told our team many times, if we're living our core values, making an honest mistake isn't failure. Failure is making the same mistake over and over because we never learned. Some of the best leaders in our company today have made mistakes, big ones, but someone didn't throw them away. Okay, someone coached them, someone believed in them, someone said, let's learn from this. That's development. Okay, I love this topic. Real leadership, and this is something I struggled with too, and I think that might have been what it was, was control. Okay. I think sometimes we get confused as leaders. Being in a leadership position, I think we struggle with control. Okay. Sure a lot of us can relate to that, especially at home. Things don't go our way. They're not doing what exactly we wanted them to do, exactly at what time we wanted them to do it, or they didn't do it the way that we told them how to do it, even though there's a hundred different ways to get a freaking cat. Okay. Ben there did that and probably still suffer from it. But we we think we think being the smartest person in the room makes us the best leader. Okay. I don't I don't believe that anymore. And those of you that know me know that I don't I don't believe that anymore. And and anybody that has been here long enough knows that I am not, by no means, by any far stretch, the smartest person in this building. The best leaders I have ever met weren't always the smartest, but they were the best developers of people. They asked questions, they listened, they challenged people, they encouraged people, they they they believed in people before people even believed in themselves. Think about someone who hopefully, hopefully somebody in your life has has changed your life. Okay. I bet and if they have, I bet it wasn't because they managed you well. I bet, I bet it was because they believed in you. And this could be apparent, okay, because they saw something in you you couldn't see yet. That was a great leadership move. That that's what great leaders actually do. Okay. At our company,

SOPs, Succession, And Real Legacy

Ty Cobb Backer 29:05

I would like to think at our company, one of the things we constantly talk about is is is having everything documented. Okay. This I'm gonna talk a little bit about building the future, okay, which might dabble a little into legacy here, okay. That's another one of my one of my favorite topics. I felt like I kind of wore that out a little bit there. But at our company, one of the things that that we constantly talk about, and I brought it up in yesterday's meeting, our earlier meeting, our pros and ops. We had to change some buckets and stuff around. The first thing is make sure we changed SOP. It's got to be documented. It has to be documented. Okay. Not because not because somebody's leaving tomorrow, not because we're gonna fire you or anything like that. It's because healthy organizations prepare early. Okay. That's that's what some of the reason why documenting and writing things down is we're preparing ourselves early. Okay. We can like, like, so who who like if let's say somebody wants to become the next estimator, okay? And I'm just using that as an example. I'm not saying that we're changing anything like that, but like Chris Baker upstairs has two estimators in his department. His training period was probably cut in half, was cut in half because things were documented. And I know both of those kids up there are thriving right now, okay. Who's gonna become the the next production manner? Who's gonna become the next sales manager, branch manager, the next owner? Okay, those people don't just magically appear, they're developed. And leadership isn't isn't hiring superheroes. We're we're helping ordinary people discover extraordinary potential. Okay, every great leader starts as someone who was inexperienced, okay. Someone, somebody somewhere along the line, hopefully, is or has invested in them. Now it's our turn, right? Whoever invested in me, okay, now it's my turn to invest in other people, okay. And I think that's where we're starting to cross over into legacy. Okay, so so here's a question I I've I've been asking myself lately, okay, a good bit of this. Okay, if I disappeared tomorrow, would the company keep growing? Not because systems exist, okay, but because leaders exist. That is real legacy. I know if something happened to me and I ended up in the hospital for three months, we would continue to keep growing, okay? Because we have leadership depth. Okay, I know we would continue to keep thriving. To me, that's real leadership, that's real legacy. Buildings don't last forever, equipment wears out, technology changes, processes improve. Okay, we talk about that shit all the time. However, people carry your influence long after you're gone. Okay, one of my favorite influencers, John Maxwell. I heard him say, think about this. A leader, a leader's lasting value is measured by succession. I think I said that right. A leader's lasting value is measured by secession, and I love that. Okay, because eventually the scoreboard won't measure how many jobs we sold, okay, or how how much revenue we generated. It'll measure how many leaders did we help create, how many families improved because somebody believed in them. Okay, how many people became more confident because we invested our time? That's impact. That's legacy. Okay.

Practical Habits For Developing People

Ty Cobb Backer 33:59

So so let me leave you, let me leave you with a with a few things that that you can start doing this week. Okay. First, first, first thing, okay. First thing that you can do. Ask more questions than answer. Okay. Second thing, and I like this one. I really do. It's only because I'm sick and twisted, I think. Let people struggle a little. Let me tell you why. Growth usually lives just outside comfort. So let them struggle a little bit. Okay. Don't just swoop in and start throwing your opinions in there and let them try to figure shit out. Okay. That's where real growth, that's where real development happens. Okay. Third thing. Give responsibility before people feel completely ready. Most of us grow because someone trusted us before we trusted ourselves. I don't know how many times I've done that or have had that happen for me. Somebody trusted me enough before I trusted myself and had the confidence in myself. Okay. Fourth thing is, and this is something that I've worked on. All of these I've worked on, but coach privately. Okay. Celebrate publicly. Collect. No. Correct with dignity. Okay. And encourage often. And finally, okay, never stop believing people can become more than they currently are. Because sometimes your belief becomes someone else's confidence. Okay. So before we get off here, I want to do with Vic's help here.

Poll, Reflection Questions, And Gratitude

Ty Cobb Backer 36:09

A poll. And the poll is simple. And I love, I would love for you to put your answers in the comments here. So the question is, which is which has had the biggest impact on your life? A a boss who managed me? B a leader who developed me. C both. D I'm still looking for that person. And honestly, I can't wait to read your responses in here. So which which has had the biggest impact on your life? Okay. A a boss who managed me well. B a leader who developed me. C, both. Or D, I'm still looking for that person. So put your answers in your com in the comments there. So as we wrap this up, I want to leave you with one final question. Okay. Who invested in your growth? Who took extra time? Who believed in you? Who gave you an opportunity you hadn't yet earned? And maybe even more importantly, who are you becoming for someone else? Because leadership isn't about climbing the ladder. Okay, and I'm going to repeat this. Leadership isn't about climbing the ladder, it's about holding the ladder for someone else. And I know that's something a lot of us struggle with. Okay. If every one of us committed to developing just one person every year, think about what our companies, our communities, our families would look like in 10 years from now. Shit, a year from now. Management gets today's work done. Development builds tomorrow's leaders. Choose to build people because when you build people, people build everything else.

Closing Thanks And Sponsors

Ty Cobb Backer 38:34

So thank you for joining us today for another episode of Behind a Tool Bell, episode 341. If today's conversation encouraged you, challenged you, or reminded you of someone who invested in your life, I'd ask you to do two things. First, share this episode with another leader who is building a team. Second, reach out to someone who helped shape your life and simply simply thank them. They may never have realized the impact that they had until they hear from you. And if you're in a position to lead others, remember this people may forget the projects you completed, but they'll never forget the confidence you helped build inside them. Thank you for your support. And thank you for being a part of the behind the tool belt community. Until next time, keep building great teams, keep developing great leaders, and never stop investing in yourself or other people. We'll see you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

Thanks to our sponsors, TC Backer Construction, Hook Roofing Marketing, RuFal, and Project Map It. And thank you for watching. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook. We are streaming on all major platforms. See you next week for another episode of Behind the Tool Belt.