Over the past few weeks, I’ve been talking with several CEOs and business owners about how they can develop their management teams. These are folks running mid-sized, privately held businesses, ranging from $10 million to $1 billion in annual revenue. They’ve built strong companies, have solid products and services, and by most measures, they’re doing well.
But despite that success, they’re uneasy. They’re not worried about the market or the competition. They’re worried because they can sense internal tension. They can feel that something inside the business is starting to stretch, and they are worried that their teams and their managers are about to snap.
This is understandable, given that most mid-sized companies grow faster than their leaders do. As the business scales, the pressure increases, decisions speed up, and coordination becomes harder. Without intentional development, performance suffers because managers start to fall into three predictable patterns:
1. Drift: The Tumbleweed Effect
I had a professor who used to tease us by saying we were all just tumbleweeds blowing around in the wind. That’s what I mean by drift. It’s when your team is just reacting to whatever comes up, without any real sense of direction. They’re busy, they’re working hard, but they’re not aligned. When drift sets in, everyone’s rowing in different directions. The result? A lot of effort, but not much progress.
2. Drag: The Brake on Progress
When there’s drift, there’s usually drag. Drag is that feeling that you’re pushing forward with the brakes on. Things get sluggish. Momentum disappears. It’s like everyone is dragging the weight of misaligned priorities and unclear goals behind them. Instead of flowing smoothly, the team starts to feel stuck. Work gets done, but it feels harder than it should. And over time, that drag wears people down.
3. Dependency: The CEO Bottleneck
Finally, when drift and drag take hold, it leads to dependency. Suddenly, every decision lands on the CEO’s desk. Managers stop taking ownership because they’re not sure which direction to go. They’re waiting for someone else to decide. And that means the CEO becomes the bottleneck, fielding every question and making every call. It’s exhausting, and it’s unsustainable.
I’ve watched these patterns play out more times than I can count, and the impact is always bigger than expected. Drift, drag, and dependency don’t just slow a business down; they slowly drain the energy from the people inside it.
One of my clients, a CEO of a $200M company, told me he felt like he was constantly “pushing a rope.” His managers were good people, smart and committed, but they were drifting. Everyone was busy, yet nothing was truly moving. Decisions piled up on his desk, and if he wasn’t present, meetings went in circles, and projects stalled. The harder he worked, the heavier everything felt, and he was on the brink of burnout.
Once you’ve seen drift, drag, and dependency up close, you can’t unsee them. You notice their effect on culture, you get frustrated with the pace (or lack thereof), and you feel them in your own exhaustion.
But the good news is that these patterns are fixable, and when they shift, everything else shifts with them.
If this describes your organization right now, I want to offer something direct:
In 2026, I’m opening one additional slot for a company that wants to strengthen its management team through my Manager Excellence Program, the same work I used with that CEO’s team to rebuild alignment, momentum, and a sense of ownership across the organization.
I only partner with a few organizations each year because the work is deep, personal, and tailored. If you’d like to explore whether 2026 is the right time for your team, reply to this email. We’ll have a conversation and see if it’s a fit.
If drift, drag, and dependency are showing up in your company, it’s worth talking about.
