The Therapy Tax: When Your 1:1s Feel Like Therapy
And What It's Really Telling You
By Stephanie Leue | InsideProductOrg
It was Q4. The entire company was stressed.
Revenue targets were not going to be hit. Everyone could feel it. And everyone — with the best intentions — started generating ideas on how to close the gap.
The problem? Almost every idea landed on product and tech.
My PM was getting pulled into meeting after meeting. Brainstorming sessions. Alignment calls. Exploratory discussions with no clear outcome. But with one clear unspoken expectation: that she would take all of this somewhere. That she would figure it out. That she would deliver.
She didn’t push back. She worked extra hours instead. She said yes to everything.
When she came to our 1:1, she didn’t complain about the workload. She complained about the meetings — how nobody left with a clear decision, how the same conversations kept happening in circles, how stakeholders would follow up asking “where are we with my idea” as if she had agreed to own it.
I listened. And then I did exactly the wrong thing.
I started giving her tips. Focus on these three things. Try to steer the meetings differently. Maybe send a follow-up email with clear next steps.
Well-intentioned advice. Completely useless.
Because I hadn’t understood the root cause yet. I was solving a problem she hadn’t actually asked me to solve. And by jumping to solutions, I was doing two things that good leadership should never do: I was treating her like she couldn’t figure it out herself — and I was letting the real problem, the system around her, completely off the hook.
I recognized it, was disappointed with myself for a moment, and then I stopped. I asked her a different kind of question.
Not “what should you do differently” — but “what do you think is actually driving this?”
That question changed the whole conversation. She knew the answer. She just needed space to find it herself instead of being handed someone else’s version of it.
We ended that 1:1 with a plan she had built, not one I had handed her. I told her to take time off to recover the hours she had given up. And I told her clearly: if anyone escalates, send them to me.
That was the day I understood what the Therapy Tax actually costs — not just the leader’s energy, but the PM’s growth.
Because every time you solve it for them, you take something from them.
This Is Your Therapy Tax
I wrote previously about the four leadership taxes that drain product leaders quietly over time. The Therapy Tax is the one that lives in this exact moment — when your energy as a leader gets consumed by absorbing chaos instead of building capability in the people around you.
Here’s what makes it difficult to recognize: it rarely feels like a problem at first. It feels like empathy. Like being present. Like good leadership.
And in small doses, it is.
But if every 1:1 runs this way - if you consistently walk out feeling like you just finished an unpaid therapy session - you are not just supporting your team. You are carrying weight that belongs somewhere else in the system. And that weight quietly eats your most valuable resource: the time and mental space to actually lead.
Here’s what I’ve learned: when multiple PMs show the same pattern, it’s almost never a coincidence. It’s a signal that the leadership team above hasn’t committed to a clear enough direction. The noise flows downward. Your PMs absorb it. And then they bring it to you.
So before you try to fix the 1:1, ask yourself three harder questions:
Are you protecting your team’s focus from the noise coming from above?
Is your strategy clear enough that your PMs can use it as a shield when stakeholders push back?
Are you treating your PMs as owners - or as order-takers who need rescuing?
The answers to those questions tell you where the real problem actually lives.
The Four PM Profiles Sitting in Your 1:1s
Not every PM brings the same kind of energy to a 1:1. And the way you respond needs to be different depending on who is sitting across from you.
In my work with product leaders, I keep seeing the same four profiles. Understanding them is the first step toward turning draining sessions back into real coaching.
1. The Bystander
What you see: Constant venting. External blockers get all the attention. Every priority shift feels like a personal attack. Every engineering delay feels like proof that the whole system is broken.
The real risk: This PM isn’t overwhelmed by the amount of work. They’ve lost their sense of agency. They’ve started to believe that things just happen to them — and that nothing they do will change that.
Your job: Don’t just nod and empathize. That feels kind in the moment, but it makes the problem worse over time. Move the conversation from “what is happening to you” to “what is within your control right now.”
Instead of: “That sounds really hard.” Ask: “What’s the one thing you could change this week that would make the biggest difference?”
Your empathy is one of your strongest leadership tools. In this moment, use it to help them find their power back — not to confirm that they don’t have any.
2. The Overwhelmed Pleaser
What you see: The nicest person on the team. Never says no. Attends every meeting. Takes every request. Tries to make everyone happy — and is quietly drowning.
The real risk: They’ll ship a product that satisfies nobody because they couldn’t make the hard prioritization calls. Helpful to a fault is still a fault.
Your job: Shift them from a service mindset to a solution mindset.
Stop asking about their to-do list. Start asking: “What is the one thing we are willing to do less of this week so we can do the most important thing well?”
That question is uncomfortable for them at first. That discomfort is the point.
3. The Solid Executor
What you see: Reliable, disciplined, steady. Great roadmaps. Hits their dates. Never complains. But also never challenges the strategy — they follow it.
The real risk: They plateau. They become your most dependable feature factory lead — and never grow into true strategic ownership.
Your job: Build their confidence to challenge the status quo. These 1:1s should push well beyond delivery.
Ask them: “If you were the CPO, what would you cut from this roadmap tomorrow — and why?”
Give them a safe space to lead before they officially have to.
4. The Change Agent
What you see: These are your talent alerts. Strong relationships across teams. Thinks several steps ahead. Delivers outcomes — not just features. Brings solutions to 1:1s, not just problems.
The real risk: You lose them. Either because you’re not challenging them enough — or because you’re managing them too closely and they feel like they can’t move.
Your job: Get out of the way.
Your 1:1s with Change Agents should be about removing organizational friction at the highest level and giving them more room to run. The best thing you can do for them is make their work visible to the right people — and then trust them completely.
The Four PM Profiles
From Therapy to Coaching: What the Shift Looks Like in Practice
Here’s a simple goal to hold before every 1:1: aim for 80% coaching, 20% listening to what’s going on.
Coaching doesn’t mean giving answers. It means asking better questions — ones that move the conversation forward instead of deeper into the problem.
Think about what happened in my Q4 story. The moment I stopped giving tips and started asking questions, everything changed. Not because the situation got easier — it didn’t. But because my PM was now the one finding the solution, not receiving one. That’s a completely different experience for her. And a completely different outcome for the team.
The shift looks like this in practice:
When they say “Stakeholders are asking for three different things,” don’t say “That sounds hard.” Ask: “Which of those three connects most directly to our current focus — and how can I help you push back on the other two?”
When they say “The engineers are stretched too thin,” don’t say “I’ll talk to the CTO.” Ask: “What is the main source of the pressure right now — and what is one thing we could remove from the sprint to give them some room?”
The difference between these responses looks small on paper. Over time, it’s the difference between a team that brings you problems and a team that brings you thinking.
Before You Fix the 1:1 — Look in the Mirror
If your 1:1s consistently feel like therapy, the most honest thing you can do is examine your own role first.
The Therapy Tax doesn’t just happen because your PMs are struggling. It happens when the system around them is unclear — and when you, as their leader, haven’t done enough to filter what’s flowing down from above.
I made that mistake in my Q4 story. I sat in a 1:1 giving tips while the real problem — a company in panic mode with no clear filter between stakeholder ideas and product capacity — was sitting completely untouched. My PM needed me to address the system, not coach her on how to survive it better.
Ask yourself honestly:
Is the pressure your PMs are feeling coming from a lack of strategic clarity at the leadership level?
Are you making the hard prioritization calls — or leaving your PMs to absorb the consequences of decisions that were never actually made?
Are you coaching your PMs to push back, or are you absorbing all the pushback yourself and leaving them without a model to follow?
When you reduce the Therapy Tax, you don’t just get better 1:1s. You get your time back. You get your focus back. And your PMs get a leader who helps them grow — instead of one who holds them up.
Stop being the therapist.
Start being the Lighthouse.
This is the work I do with CPOs and VPs of Product.
If your 1:1s have started to feel more like therapy than leadership, that is usually a signal that one of the four taxes is running quietly in the background. The assessment takes five minutes and tells you which one.
If you want to work through a specific situation with someone who tells you the truth, a Power Hour is the right next step. (Paid offering)
This article is part two of my series about the four leadership taxes.
If you missed the earlier articles you can find them here:
Part One: My Product Operating Model
Part Two: The Therapy Tax
Part Three: The Trust Tax
Part Four: The Alignment Tax
Part Five: The Confidence Tax
Part Six: How the Taxes show up in your Roadmap