Three daily scenes
- Every week starts with a new urgent escalation.
- The manager becomes the default reviewer and decoder.
- The team waits for the manager to make work move.
Problem page
How to Stop Being the Bottleneck as an Engineering Manager
You delegated the work, but decisions, reviews, and rescue moves still come back to you.
What you probably tried
- Working harder and staying available longer.
- Delegating tasks instead of decision rights.
- Adding more process to keep the fire smaller.
Why it did not solve it
Firefighting persists when the team still depends on the manager to interpret, decide, and approve.
The Push diagnosis
This is the Player Trap: execution strength becomes a dependency problem.