Contributors Shout out to the contributors who helped create this document through asking questions and sharing insights**:** Ali Shepherd, Laura Boyer, Ariana Kolaitis, Leanne Doutre
Most startups and scale-ups do the same thing:
👏 Hire brilliant individual contributors.
👉 Promote them into manager roles.
😬 Forget to give them support.
The result? Managers keep their IC workload, avoid tough conversations, and end up with teams who feel lost. And when managers aren’t leading well, it’s not just a people issue, it drags down performance, slows growth, and creates risks investors notice.
Manager enablement is about giving them the clarity, confidence, and tools to lead so the business can scale without burning people out.