What Leaders and Managers Can Learn from The Art of Showing Up
Most managers are trained to solve problems, not to notice when a person on their team is struggling before it becomes a performance issue. Rachel Wilkerson Miller's argument, that showing up well means offering concrete help and building ordinary habits of care rather than waiting for a crisis, applies directly to how a team functions day to day. A manager who says "my door is always open" has made an offer that requires the struggling person to name the problem, often to the very person evaluating their performance. The stronger move is noticing early and offering something specific. This piece adapts the book's four ideas, knowing your own limits, offering concrete support instead of open doors, letting your team and peers support you, and treating care as routine, to the power dynamics of managing people.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Knowing your own limits before you set the tone for others
A leader who cannot name their own capacity tends to either overextend until they burn out publicly or withdraw and become unreadable to their team. Either way, the team absorbs the uncertainty.
A manager keeps saying yes to every new initiative leadership assigns the team, then snaps at direct reports during a crunch that was avoidable.
Before agreeing to new scope for your team, name out loud or in writing what you would need to drop to take it on.
Offering specific help instead of an open door
"Let me know if you need anything" puts the burden of asking on someone who may already feel exposed by struggling in front of their manager. A specific offer, take this deliverable off your plate this week, removes that burden.
A manager notices a direct report missing deadlines and only says "reach out if you're overwhelmed," and nothing changes because the report cannot risk naming it first.
When you notice someone struggling, name one concrete task you can take off their plate this week and offer it directly.
Letting your own team and peers support you
Many leaders treat asking their own manager or peer leaders for help as a threat to their credibility. But leaders who let themselves be supported model exactly the behavior they want their teams to practice.
A manager absorbs an unreasonable deadline from above without pushing back or asking a peer for a sanity check, then passes the pressure straight down to the team.
Identify one peer manager you trust and ask them directly for feedback on a specific decision this month.
Building a culture of care as routine, not response
The teams with the most resilient trust rarely have a single grand gesture, a lavish offsite or a crisis plan nobody has read. They have a manager who checks in briefly and consistently, where small covering of shifts and small acknowledgments happen often enough that nobody wonders whether asking for help is safe. That rhythm takes longer to build than any single gesture, but it is what people remember and rely on when something goes wrong.
A new manager under pressure to deliver results may feel that pausing to name their own limits, or to ask a peer for help, will read as weakness at the worst possible time. Start with your own limits anyway, quietly and privately if needed, because a depleted leader cannot see clearly enough to offer concrete help to anyone else. Clarity about your own state comes first, even under deadline pressure.
Name one thing, honestly
- Where on your team have you offered an open door instead of a specific hand? - Who could you ask for support this month instead of absorbing pressure alone? - What is one small, repeatable habit that would make care feel routine rather than exceptional on your team?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Identify one peer manager you trust and ask them directly for feedback on a specific decision this month.