Why is it that no matter what, we always feel busy?
There’s a lot of work that managers do that nobody ever sees. It’s work that doesn’t show up in a project plan in Asana or ClickUp. It’s work that doesn’t fit neatly into an action item on your to-do list. Even worse, it’s work that rarely gets recognised in your performance reviews.
And yet, without it, your team would fall apart very quickly.
Being an effective team manager isn’t just about meetings, deliverables, or even concrete outputs.
It’s actually about emotional labour, constant (and clear) thinking, buffering and absorbing pressure, making judgement calls with little data and holding responsibility quietly in the background.
Sidenote – if you’re not yet a manager and reading this, don’t be scared!
When leadership is working well, it can often look like nothing is actually happening. There’s no drama, no escalation, no fires to put out.
It’s kind of like a referee at a football game – the best ones go unnoticed for 90 minutes. Or 60 minutes, if you’re in the US.
Ironically, that’s also why so many managers feel exhausted, undervalued, and close to burnout – even when, on paper, their workload doesn’t look extreme.
What invisible management work actually includes
The invisible work of management is rarely listed in job descriptions, but it takes up a huge amount of mental and emotional energy.
It can of course differ for everyone, because all of our emotions and ways of dealing with things are different. But generally, there are a few commonalities.
Emotional regulation (yours and others)
Staying calm when someone is stressed. Absorbing frustration from above so it doesn’t spill onto the team. Managing your own reactions so you can respond thoughtfully rather than emotionally.
Context switching
Rapidly shifting mental gears between people problems, strategic decisions, delivery issues, stakeholder expectations, and long-term planning – often within the same hour. This is a hugely underrated skill for managers, mostly because it’s so hard to see.
Holding complexity
Keeping multiple competing priorities in your head at once. Balancing trade-offs. Making decisions without full information. Accepting that there often isn’t a perfect answer. All of this can be hard to hold and deal with effectively.
Translating strategy into reality
Taking vague or high-level direction and turning it into something your team understands and can actually act on is a big part of your role, especially at larger companies where you need to fit into the bigger picture and strategy.
Preventing problems before they appear
Spotting tensions early. Adjusting workloads quietly. Having a conversation now so it doesn’t become an escalation later. Fixing things before anyone realises they were close to breaking. No one notices any of this, but you feel it.
Carrying responsibility quietly
Holding accountability for outcomes even when you’re not directly doing the work. Feeling responsible for morale, performance, delivery, and wellbeing – whether or not anyone asked you to. Then when things go well, you throw the praise onto your team.
None of this is particularly visible. But all of it is essential in order to be an effective leader.
Why does such important work go unnoticed?
There’s no doubt that all of this is important and in fact, the best managers will spend just as much (if not more) time on these intangible areas than the more tangible ones. Yet those around us don’t notice them.
Why?
One of the most obvious reasons is that this type of work is hard to measure. You can count tasks completed, meetings attended and revenue generated. You can’t easily quantify emotional regulation or good judgment under pressure. My favourite one – you can’t easily quantify the value of preventing problems from happening.
Another, related reason is that this kind of work doesn’t fit neatly into KPIs.
Most metrics focus on outputs, not the conditions or behaviours that made those outputs possible.
Thirdly, most of the behaviours and actions above are taken between meetings, not inside them. It’s that conversation you have with someone when you walk back to your desk or it’s the decision that you didn’t escalate or the email that you rewrote three times to avoid unnecessary conflict.
And finally, to follow on from an earlier point, success often looks like there are no issues. No drama. No complaints. No crises.
When things are going well, it’s easy to assume they’re going well on their own, rather than because someone is actively holding everything together.
How to make invisible work visible (without complaining)
This isn’t about martyrdom or listing everything you do just to prove a point.
It’s about language, framing and clarity for yourself and those around you.
Here are some actionable ways for you to do this.
Name leadership work explicitly
Instead of saying to your boss “I’ve been busy,” describe the nature of the work that has been taking up time and headspace.
It’s likely to be things like decision-making, stakeholder management, team support, risk reduction, avoiding problems etc.
Track decisions, not tasks.
An old boss of mine advocated for the use of a “decision log” where he kept track of key decisions that he’d made. He would then go back over them every so often and see how those decisions had panned out.
You can do the same. Make a note of what decisions you made this week that unblocked work, reduced risk, or created clarity. Focus on the stuff that isn’t obvious.
Reflect on prevented issues
Ask yourself: what didn’t happen because of early intervention, a conversation, or a quiet adjustment? What problems did I see coming that I was able to prevent?
Reframe your impact in reviews
In your next performance reviews with your own manager, talk about outcomes that you’ve enabled, stability created, people developed, not just projects delivered.
Help senior leaders understand true capacity.
When discussing workload, explain the cognitive and emotional load, not just the task list. Show that you understand that a task or project can be just as demanding on headspace as it can be on time.
Making invisible work visible isn’t about self-promotion. It’s about sustainability.
How to protect time for invisible work
Whilst the impact of invisible work can be on your headspace, not just on time, it can easily eat up a whole day or week without you realising. So it’s important to carve out actual time for this so that you don’t end up feeling too overwhelmed by everything.
Block out thinking time
I’m a big fan of this for any kind of deep work. But don’t be afraid to block out time literally for thinking too. Set aside time with no meetings, no deliverables, no interruptions, just space to think clearly. This can be scary because you sit down for a few hours without a specific output in mind. But as a manager and leader, your role requires you to think carefully, not just act.
Reducing meeting load where possible
There is nothing wrong with meetings that have a purpose and that you personally add value to. But we often go along to meetings that we simply don’t need to be at. Don’t be afraid to step out because fewer meetings means more capacity for judgment, preparation and reflection.
Saying no earlier
Not everything deserves your involvement. Early boundaries prevent later overload. Give your team trust and autonomy to figure things out for themselves.
Treat leadership work as legitimate work
Leading a team isn’t something that you squeeze in after “real” tasks are done.
This is often uncomfortable at first, especially for managers who value being visibly helpful. But without this space, invisible work turns into invisible strain.
To finish up, if something feels heavy, it probably is.
If management feels heavier than it looks, there’s a reason.
Invisible doesn’t mean unimportant. Unmeasured doesn’t mean unnecessary. Quiet doesn’t mean easy.
Much of what makes teams function well is held together by work that nobody applauds – including the manager themselves.
It’s part of the job, we need to own it and do it effectively. But that doesn’t mean suffering in silence and feeling like we don’t have time for this important work and that even when we do, it’s not recognised.
