Dealer principals and general managers who hold onto every decision can end up slowing down the very teams they’re counting on, and getting out of the way starts with building the right structure.
On today’s edition of CBT Live, CEO Coach Pete Srodoski joined Jim and Bridget Fitzpatrick to discuss how dealership leaders can build stronger managers and let their teams do the job. Srodoski is the Founder of Roll With the Punches, and the author of several books on leadership. Srodoski has more than 20 years in operations and has overseen 10-plus retail stores with over a billion dollars in lifetime revenue. He said owners and GMs should provide the vision and hold the team accountable, but too much dependence on them creates a bottleneck.
When people can’t get answers without the boss, they keep coming back, and that slows everything down. The remedy is to give the team real authority and responsibility, ask questions instead of handing out solutions, and let people make decisions and learn from their mistakes.
Accountability works best with structure and a steady rhythm, Srodoski said. He recommended a weekly leadership meeting, consistent one-on-ones, clearly defined roles, and scorecards with KPIs. He warned against what he calls drive-by management, where a leader goes quiet for weeks and then shows up everywhere at once.
The same thinking applies to promotions. A top salesperson doesn’t automatically make a good sales manager, since one role is a hero and the other is a hero maker who finds success through the team, according to Srodoski, who has coached more than 100 CEOs. He suggested giving promising employees stretch assignments, such as running a sales challenge or a training session, and watching how they handle it. Dealers who feel like the bottleneck can start by building a team they trust, making sure everyone is rowing in the same direction, and then stepping back to verify and validate the work.
