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Why Most Cheer Gyms Hire Managers Too Soon
Dan Cotton, host of the Cheer Biz Podcast, breaks down what a real manager actually does — and why most gym owners hand out the title without ever defining the job. He explains when hiring a manager makes sense, when it backfires, and how to delegate responsibility without creating a new position at all.
What Counts as a Real Manager
Dan opened by defining terms that get used loosely across the cheer industry. A manager, he explained, is someone responsible for controlling, directing, and administering a business, department, team, or specific set of resources — typically overseeing a staff group, a budget, and a schedule. A director is similar but tied to a specific program, along with the staff and outcomes that program produces. In cheer gyms, that shows up as titles like all-star director, tumbling director, staff manager, camps and clinics director, or front desk manager.
Not every one of those titles reflects real management, though. Dan pointed to the front desk as an example: even though a great front desk hire is one of the best investments a gym owner can make, running the front desk doesn’t make someone a manager unless they’re supervising other people. A manager cannot simply be a manager of one — someone who only oversees their own role is a front desk associate, a sales associate, or a client support specialist, not a manager.
Supervision Means Setting Real Goals
The first true responsibility of a manager, Dan said, is supervision — overseeing daily operations and guiding team members toward clearly established goals. That word “clearly” matters, because Dan sees gym owners skip it constantly. A staff member gets told they’re now the director and sent off with no further direction, left to guess what managing actually means.
This gets worse, Dan explained, when the new manager is an internal hire — someone promoted from coach to director — because owners often can’t resist micromanaging the decisions that person is supposed to be making. If every choice still has to be run past the owner first, the manager isn’t really supervising anything; they’re functioning as a stand-in security camera for the owner rather than an actual decision-maker. A real manager needs measurable goals of their own, and needs to set measurable goals for the staff underneath them.
Delegation Authority Can’t Be Fake
The second requirement is genuine delegation authority. Dan used a scheduling example to illustrate the difference: a manager should be able to move a tumbling class from one instructor to another — shifting a class from an overwhelmed coach to one with more availability — without asking the owner’s permission first. If a manager has to bring every staffing decision back to the owner for approval, they aren’t actually managing. Real delegation means being able to hand out staffing assignments and keep operations running without looping in upper management for routine calls.
Communication Requires Stepping Back
Third, Dan said managers need to be able to communicate freely, acting as a bridge between ownership and frontline staff. That requires owners to actually let them do it. He cautioned against a common habit: running every staff meeting personally and never handing the floor to the manager. If the owner is always the one speaking, and staff are told to go to the manager only afterward with problems, the manager never builds real authority — and the arrangement won’t hold up.
Budgets and Hiring Should Be Real Too
Fourth on Dan’s list is administrative control, which he acknowledged is the piece most cheer gyms skip entirely. Few gyms hand a tumbling director an actual budget for equipment or staffing tied to class enrollment, largely because the owner doesn’t know how to build one. Without a defined budget, Dan said, owners end up making resource decisions based on feelings rather than data — and managers never get the authority that would make the title meaningful.
The fifth responsibility is hiring authority. A manager should be able to vet candidates, review resumes, and conduct initial interviews, bringing recommendations to the owner rather than the owner running the whole process. Dan compared this to his own hiring at the Beaverton Police Department, where roughly 180 candidates went through an initial round of interviews, and only the small group closest to an offer ever sat down with the police chief for a final sign-off. That structure — delegated screening with a final approving authority — is the model Dan recommends for gym hiring, too.
Not Everyone Is Cut Out to Lead
Dan was candid that even with clear goals, delegation authority, open communication, and real budget and hiring power, not every promotion works out. He described a pattern common across the cheer industry: promoting people to their level of incompetence, most often landing them in a managerial role they aren’t equipped for, then offering no training or authority, growing frustrated when they don’t perform, and ultimately demoting or firing them — when the failure often traces back to how the role was set up in the first place.
Some excellent instructors, he added, simply aren’t wired to lead, no matter how much guidance or education they receive. The people worth promoting into management are the ones who show real strength in supervision, delegation, communication, administration, and holding others accountable — not necessarily the strongest instructors on staff.
The 150-Athlete Rule of Thumb
For gyms wondering whether they even need a manager, Dan offered a benchmark: if a gym has fewer than 150 athletes and the owner spends at least 40% of their time on-site, that owner should be able to run the gym without adding a layer of management. The exception is an owner who works another job full-time and is only at the gym one or two nights a week — in that case, a manager may be necessary to cover the gaps, regardless of athlete count.
Delegate Without Handing Over a Title
Dan’s closing point was that delegation and management aren’t the same thing, and owners don’t need to create a new title every time they want to hand off a task. A staff member can be the shift lead for the evening, responsible for making sure everyone clocks in and submits lesson plans, without being named a manager. Someone can serve as a curriculum specialist for tumbling, handle competition registration, manage billing, or take on parent communication — all as part of their existing role, with a bonus or added hours attached, rather than a promotion that creates a new layer of authority they may not be ready for.
Handled this way, Dan said, owners get the benefit of delegation — fewer tasks on their own plate — without the frustration that comes from putting someone into a management role that was never clearly defined.
Join Dan at the Next Cheer Biz Accelerator
Dan closed the episode by inviting gym owners who are wrestling with staffing structure, delegation, or whether it’s time to add a manager to join him at an upcoming Cheer Biz Accelerator event. The next event takes place in November at his own facility, Oregon Dream Teams, where he and Danielle will walk attendees through a deep dive on their business and offer direct feedback on what to change. Spots are limited — the recent Warrensburg event sold out almost immediately — and Cheer Biz Accelerator dates are already being booked into January and February of 2027.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Cheer Biz Podcast. Listeners are encouraged to join the Cheer Gym Owners and All-Star Cheer Coaches and Owners groups on Facebook to keep the conversation going, and to catch the next episode.
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like “Hiring a Director Wont Solve Your Problems”
