You just got promoted to manager. Congrats. Now everyone wants something from you.

Your inbox won’t stop. Your calendar is packed. Someone asks for “just a quick minute” for the third time today. You say yes to everything because that’s what good managers do, right?

But when you can’t master setting boundaries for early-career managers, you end up drowning in other people’s urgent stuff while your actual job gets ignored.

Why Early-Career Managers Can’t Say No

Most new managers struggle with setting boundaries because they want to be liked. This is a recurring theme in my leadership coaching; the fear of becoming the “bad guy.”

You remember the managers who got weird after their promotion. Distant. Hard to reach. You told yourself you’d be different. The approachable one. The one with a real open door policy.

So you say yes to everything. Every meeting. Every question. Every problem your team could probably solve themselves. And then you wonder why you’re exhausted.

What You’re Missing When You Can’t Set Boundaries

When you are always saying yes, here is what doesn’t get done:

1. You stop planning. No time to think about next quarter or spot problems before they blow up.
2. You stop learning. That course you wanted to take? Still on the list.
3. You stop coaching. Real coaching takes focus. When you’re interrupted all day, you just give quick answers instead of helping people figure things out.
4. You lose focused work. The big analysis. The strategy doc. The performance review that needs real thought. All of it gets rushed or pushed to nights and weekends.

What Happens When You Never Say No

You think boundaries will make you look bad. But here is what actually goes wrong when you can’t set them.

Your team learns they need you for everything. You are creating people who can’t solve problems on their own. This is exactly why organizations invest in in-company management training: to prevent managers from becoming the bottleneck that slows down the entire department.

Your boss thinks you are only good at small tasks because you never have time for the bigger strategic work. You get tired and annoyed. People can tell. The work that would actually help your team get better never happens.

The “Yes, And” Trick from Improv

Here is a simple technique that helps with setting boundaries for early-career managers without sounding like a jerk.

In improv, performers use “yes, and” to accept what someone says and then add to it. You can use the same thing to acknowledge requests without automatically doing them.

The “Yes, And” in practice:

• The Request: “Can you jump into this meeting?”
  • Your Answer: “Yes, I can see why my input would help, and I think Sarah actually knows more about this. Let me connect you two.”
• The Request: “Can you help with this?”
  • Your Answer: “Yes, this sounds important, and I’m tied up until Thursday. Can it wait or should we find someone else to help?”
• The Request: “I have a problem.”
  • Your Answer: “Yes, I hear you’re stuck, and I’d like to hear what ideas you’ve already tried.”

This works because you acknowledge the person. They don’t feel blown off. But you still protect your time.

Boundaries You Can Actually Use

Here are some boundaries you can start using today.

Around time:

• “I’m available for questions Tuesday and Thursday, 2-3 PM.”
• “I keep mornings free for focused work.”
• “I check email three times a day. Urgent stuff goes on Slack.”

For what you will do:

• “I can point you to resources, and then you take the first shot at solving this.”
• “Let’s spend 15 minutes on this, then you keep going.”
• “I’ll review what you come up with, but I need you to build it.”

About decisions:

• “This is your call. I trust your judgment.”
• “Bring me your recommendation, not just the problem.”
• “I’ll decide, but you need to do the analysis.”

These boundaries don’t just protect your time. They help your team get better at their jobs.

How to Start Setting Boundaries

Pick one thing that keeps pulling you away from important work. Figure out a “yes, and” response that redirects it. Use that response three times this week.

You will feel weird about it. That is normal. Someone might push back a little.

But you will also have time to actually plan. To think. To help your team grow instead of just answering questions all day. Setting boundaries for early-career managers means you can finally do the parts of the job that matter. Planning. Developing people. Making real decisions.

Your team doesn’t need you available every second. They need you clear-headed and focused.

Interested how you can apply this in your work? Schedule a free introduction here.

You sit in the meeting room. Your palms are sweating. Across from you sits the person who built this department. They have twenty years on the clock. You have six months in your seat. You need to tell them their behavior is toxic. The silence feels heavy. You feel like an imposter.

The “Veteran Wall” is the invisible barrier of seniority. It is built from years of service and institutional knowledge. Most new managers try to climb it with politeness. This fails every time. You cannot “nice” your way into respect.

Experience is not a shield

You are the manager for a reason. Tenure does not grant immunity from feedback. High turnover often starts with one untouchable expert. Your team looks at you. They want to see if you have a spine.

Do not hide behind your job title. That is corporate theater. Speak to the person. Address the behavior directly. When an expert is allowed to underperform, the culture rots. Your high-performers will leave first. They are waiting for you to lead.

‘Coloring along’ with DISC

The DISC model helps you build a real connection. Everyone communicates through a specific color preference. A Red personality wants the bottom line fast. They respect strength and brevity. Do not apologize for the feedback.

Yellow types need to feel heard. They fear social exclusion. Frame the feedback as a way to reconnect with the team.

Green seeks safety and a steady pace. They hate sudden change. Use a calm tone and offer clear steps forward.

Blue demands facts and logic. Show them the data. Prove why the current behavior fails.

Speak their language to lower their guard. This is about removing friction. It has nothing to do with manipulation. It is about recognizing the human on the other side.

The trap of seeking validation

Many young leaders suffer from “approval addiction”. You want the veteran to like you. You want them to say you are doing a good job. This is a dangerous trap.

If you need their validation, you cannot lead them. Neuroscience shows that status threats trigger a fight-or-flight response. When you challenge a senior expert, you trigger this response. They will push back. Your job is to stay grounded. Do not take their defense personally.

Personal leadership as the foundation

Real leadership coaching starts with looking in the mirror. Stop seeking validation from the senior experts. Your authority comes from your internal values.

Acknowledge the tension. Tell them you respect their history. Then tell them why the current path fails. This is how you build a real connection. True leadership is being the same person regardless of who is in front of you.

Schedule a free introduction call to discuss the possibilities for your situation here.

Many managers have some sense of what success looks like: generating output X or hitting a growth percentage Y. But they are often confused as to how to actually achieve that. They channel their energy towards short-term solutions and struggle with their team’s dramatically low sense of accountability and ownership.

When the team comes to them with a problem, the manager gives the answer. Problem solved. These are good intentions, but they are channeled incorrectly. It is short-term thinking. Well-intended, but ineffective long-term. Our ego’s love it though. I’ve been there many times. Nothing beats giving a smart answer and feeling useful.

The Thinking Manager

But this newsletter is for the Next Level Manager (NLM), the type of manager that works intentionally. They don’t just “do” management; they think deeply about what effective leadership actually is and how to help their team achieve their long-term goals.

They realize that in order to achieve those business goals, the development of their team’s capabilities is critical. Because they are the people that have to deliver those results. Help them become 20% more capable, and results can increase by 20%.

Strategies for Increasing Team Ownership

An essential driver behind that process is the amount of ownership and resourcefulness a team possesses. This is a dynamic metric, not a static one. You have influence over it. If you make increasing team ownership your objective, you will approach questions from your team differently.

This requires sacrifice. You might have to disappoint your team. You might even have to leave them hanging. You have to accept short-term hits to your popularity because you need to move away from giving them the answers to every question they bring you.

Avoiding the Dependency Cycle

Every time you offer an answer, you create a little more dependency. They see you as a little bit more important, and you are slowly setting yourself up for long-term failure. This is the Help-Trap. I have been on both sides: the trapper’s side and the trapée’s side. Both feel good short-term, but keep you stuck long-term. The more answers you give, the more questions will come your way, and the busier you will be. Many leaders who burn out are caught in this trap.

With the rise of AI, individual knowledge becomes less valuable. If you cling to being the person with all the answers, your position devalues over time. Instead, become a catalyst for your team’s learning. Instead of giving the answer, express your trust in their capabilities to find it themselves: “I know what you’re capable of, I’ve seen you do it before. See what solutions you can come up with.”

Practical Steps Toward Resourcefulness

It is important to distinguish between questions your team cannot know or solve on their own (budget, leave dates, etc.) and questions they can solve (internal conflicts, client problems). As we all use AI more, we are becoming worse at creative thinking. This makes this an uphill battle, but it is one worth fighting. Tell your team: “Anytime you come to me with a problem, tell me what solutions you have already considered.”

To make this practical, the NLM facilitates monthly sessions where team members show the rest of the group the process they followed to find a creative solution. The focus is not on the actual solution; it is on the steps they took to get there. During these sessions, use public recognition for the team members who showed the most resourcefulness. By highlighting someone who solved a problem without waiting for an answer, you signal to the rest of the team that you value independent thinking over simply “checking in.”

Investing in Long-term Impact

Think of it this way: if they are lost in the forest, do you give them direct instructions to get out? Or do you teach them to read a map and use a compass? I’ll zoom in on the process, and importance, of teaching new skills to your team, in a future edition of this newsletter. How to teach them to ‘read a compass’. But before we get there, we must let go of the tendency to give our team all the answers.

This shift is a vital part of leadership coaching. The leaders I work with transform their definitions of success, in ways that helps them, and their careers.

If you are ready to stop being the “answering machine” and start building a high-ownership team, schedule your free introduction call to discuss the possibilities for your specific situation.

Welcome to the first edition of The Next Level Manager.

I am David. I want to help you find some breathing room in your own to-do list.

In my coaching work, I see the same pattern over and over. I call it the “Player-Coach Trap.” It happens when you think your value still comes from the technical tasks you used to do: the code, the deals, or the designs.

It does not.

The Shift: Leading from the Inside Out.

Moving to the next level means your priority has to change. You are not responsible for the work anymore; you are responsible for the people.

This requires a different kind of growth. It is not about learning a new software, but about developing the maturity to handle the human side of business. This is where “perspective” comes in. To bring it, move from giving the answer to asking deepening questions:

• “What haven’t we thought of here?”
• “What is a different way this could work?”
• “What is the essence of what we’re trying to accomplish. Are we still moving towards that?”

The source of these questions must be your own deep sense of what you and your team’s mission is, and why. If you have that inner compass, you will naturally sense when the team deviates from the course. You’ll get it through reflection. Quiet, focused, thinking-time. Even 5 minutes a day is enough.

The Main Question to Ask

You can ask yourself: achieving what 3 objectives will make you score your year a 100/100 at the end? That’s where your compass is pointing.

You cannot give your team clarity if you do not have it yourself.

From this position of clarity, you can help your team gain perspective. Through questioning. By asking these questions, you don’t “fix” the problem for them; you help them see the path back to the track themselves. Giving someone the answer is like scrolling their social media feed for them: it’s forgotten the next minute. But helping them find new answers themselves, is what actually helps them grow, comparable to making their own social media post. That’s what they’ll remember.

The First Step

Leave the hero role behind. Your job is no longer to be the most productive person in the room, but to be the one who brings the most perspective to it. When you make that shift, you will feel it immediately. You’ll have achieved a different, more relaxed state. And from that, you can start making a much bigger impact.

The next level is not a promotion. It is a decision to lead from the inside out. It starts with you.

You open your inbox and there is the first sick report of the day again. Followed by a message from a frustrated employee who “needs to talk” about their manager. You know exactly what is happening. That one talented specialist who was promoted six months ago is stuck. He is working harder than ever, but his team is falling apart. For these experts, targeted management training for new managers is crucial to make the leap from content to impact.

Searching for the right course

New managers often lack a clear compass in the beginning. They fall back on their intuition or on how they were once managed themselves, which is not always the best blueprint for their current team. Sometimes they are overconfident and steamroll over people with a tunnel vision on results. Others withdraw and become too detached out of fear of making mistakes. You see them searching: one day too task-oriented and authoritarian, the next day too soft because they do not want to lose the connection. These fluctuations in style cause a restlessness that lands directly on your desk.

Why HR often needs to “clean up the mess”

It is a classic pattern for which you pay the price. A good technical expert is pushed into a leadership role without hesitation. The result? A manager who micromanages because he does not dare to let go of the wheel. And who gets to conduct the difficult conversations, manage the absenteeism, and handle the exit interviews when talent leaves? You.

This constant patching up eats your calendar. You simply do not get to the strategic work you were actually hired for. You are busy all day closing holes in the culture caused by faltering leadership. Targeted management training for new managers prevents HR from remaining the organization’s cleanup crew.

Stop the bleeding with personal leadership

Real leadership is not a list of skills you simply check off. It starts with the courage to look in the mirror. We must return to the foundation: Personal Leadership. Only when a manager understands why he holds on to that control so convulsively or why he avoids that confrontation does something change on the shop floor. Without that psychological depth, any management training remains a case of mopping with the tap open.

The calculation your Board understands

Let’s be honest: you also have to sell this internally. The cost of high employee turnover in teams is enormous, but the solution pays for itself twice over. Figures show that every dollar you put into decent leadership development yields an average of 7 dollars in value.

That means less absenteeism, lower recruitment costs, and above all: a team that runs independently again. It gives you the space to be that strategic partner again instead of the permanent crisis manager. A good investment in leadership coaching or management training for new managers is therefore not a cost, but pure profit for the peace in your organization.

Schedule a free introduction call here to discuss the possibilities for your context.

Low Engagement Keeps HR and L&D Professionals Awake at Night

The latest quarterly HR audit figures are in, and the signals are concerning. Employee engagement is declining, the eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) has stagnated, and turnover among high potentials in the Amsterdam region is increasing. As an HR Director or L&D Manager, you understand that strategic plans are only as effective as the managers responsible for executing them.

The realization is clear: there is a problem. However, you are not alone. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 report shows a worldwide decline in engagement, primarily driven by an even sharper decrease in engagement among managers. A manager’s level of engagement has a direct and significant impact on the engagement of their team.

The Solution to Low Engagement: Management Training

According to Gallup, approximately $9.6 trillion in productivity can be unlocked globally if managers are fully engaged. To achieve this, Gallup advises that the most effective action companies can take is to train their managers. Furthermore, they recommend teaching managers how to coach.

As technical skills become less permanent, coaching abilities become increasingly essential. In my management training programs, I teach new managers how to coach their teams effectively. This leads to higher engagement, more motivated employees, and fewer issues for HR to resolve.

The Cost of the ‘Accidental Manager’

Many managers in the Amsterdam business market have transitioned into their roles based on subject matter expertise rather than leadership skills. Without targeted leadership development, they inadvertently become the source of the challenges HR faces daily:

• Rising Absenteeism: Often the result of a management style that fails to recognize early signs of stress.
• Low Retention: In a competitive market like Amsterdam, talent leaves for competitors as soon as the relationship with their direct supervisor deteriorates.
• Declining Employee Engagement: Without proper guidance, employees lose their connection to the company’s mission.

Approximately half of all managers have never received formal management training. This lack of guidance is the root cause of many management issues. These are not individuals with bad intentions; they are professionals who are navigating their roles without a clear framework. Conducting difficult conversations, facilitating effective meetings, managing underperformance, and motivating staff are all skills that can be learned, yet they often fail in practice due to a lack of proper support.

Management Training That Supports HR KPIs

By investing in professional leadership coaching, we address the core of the issue. We train managers to move beyond just monitoring output and instead create an environment where psychological safety and performance coexist. This is the only sustainable way to structurally improve the eNPS.

Investing in Leadership in the Amsterdam Region

Whether your organization is located at the Zuidas or is a growing company in Amsterdam-Noord, the war for talent is won through the quality of your management. You require a partner who understands that training is only successful when burnout rates decrease and internal mobility increases.

My programs are designed to provide managers with the tools to:

1. Create Clarity: Managers learn exactly what is expected of them—and what is not—enabling them to lead with focus.
2. Increase Engagement: They learn how to keep employees genuinely involved and motivated, which is directly reflected in the eNPS.
3. Build High-Performing Teams: Facilitate the transition from a group of individuals to a cohesive team that delivers top performance.

Conclusion

Is it time to elevate the leadership development within your organization? You can read more here about how my customized management training in Amsterdam can support your HR objectives. Alternatively, you may schedule a complimentary introductory meeting via www.davidbuirs.com/contact.

Your inbox is a crime scene. Deadlines stack up while you sit in another hour of corporate theater. A senior lead invites you to a meeting with no agenda. No context. You watch your afternoon vanish in real-time.

Most new leaders treat these invites like a summons to court. You show up. You endure ten minutes of weather talk. You watch a colleague turn a “short update” into a personal manifesto. You leave the room feeling drained. If you want to know how to lead team meetings better, stop being a hostage to them.

The cost of passive leadership

Real leadership requires backbone. You must realize that your time is your only true capital. If you do not manage yourself, you cannot manage a team. You are simply reacting to the loudest person in the room.

You have two choices when the “agenda-less” invite arrives.

You can pretend your Wi-Fi died and vanish. It is a temporary escape, but it solves nothing. Or, you can be direct. Ask a simple question before you click “Accept”: “What is the specific goal of this meeting so I can prepare properly?”

From corporate theater to a team manifesto

During the session, be the one who interrupts the noise. When the conversation drifts, name the pain. “We are off-topic. Let’s get back to the objective.”

If you want your team to change their behavior, use this meeting efficiency manifesto. It is a team charter designed to kill the fluff and focus on impact. You can even introduce it without being the formal leader of the group. By doing show, you demonstrate informal leadership.

The managers I support in leadership coaching often fear this confrontation. They think the room will bite back. It won’t. Most people will silently thank you for rescuing them from another hour of wasted budget.

Stop “putting out fires” by attending every fire drill. Start owning the room by owning your boundaries.

Schedule a free introduction call to discuss the possibilities for your situation and see if there is mutual chemistry here.