One of the hardest conversations I haave with LPTV owners goes like this. They tell me they are exhausted. They are doing everything. They are the sales manager, the chief engineer, the news director, the traffic manager, the HR department, and on most days the person emptying the trash. I ask them who backs them up if they get sick for a week. The answer is usually silence, followed by a nervous laugh.
That is not a sustainable business. It is a single point of failure wearing a broadcaster’s lanyard. And the only way out of it is to build a leadership bench, even at a small station, even on a tight budget, even when you think there is nobody to promote.
Let me challenge that last assumption first. In almost every small station I have visited, there is at least one person on the payroll who is capable of more responsibility than they have been given. The problem is not usually a talent shortage. The problem is that nobody has taken the time to develop them, and so they have either plateaued in their current role or started looking for somewhere else to work.
What a leadership bench actually looks like in LPTV
You are not building a Fortune 500 org chart. You are building redundancy and capacity. A leadership bench at a small station typically means three things. First, at least one person besides you who can make operational decisions without calling you. Second, clear written understanding of who does what when you are not around. Third, a development path for your best people that gives them a reason to stay.
In practical terms, that might look like a senior operator who also handles scheduling, a sales rep who is being groomed as a sales manager, and a technical person who can back up your chief engineer. It does not have to be fancy. It has to be real. The test is simple. If you disappear for two weeks, does the station keep operating at normal quality? If the answer is no, you do not have a bench yet.
The delegation trap
Most owners I talk to say they want to delegate more. Then they fail at it. The reason is almost always the same. They delegate the task but not the authority. They hand someone a responsibility and then second-guess every decision that person makes. After a few rounds of that, the employee stops deciding and starts asking. Now the owner is even more exhausted than before, and the employee is demoralized.
If you are going to delegate, delegate the outcome, not the method. Tell your new sales manager that you need them to hit a certain revenue number and that you will stay out of their way on how they get there. Tell your news director that you want the 6 p.m. newscast to hit certain quality markers and that the editorial calls are theirs. Then keep your word. Nothing kills a bench faster than an owner who delegates in public and micromanages in private.
How to identify the people to develop
Look for three traits. Judgment, ownership, and capacity for honest disagreement. Skills can be taught. Technical competence can be added. But judgment is the difference between someone who executes and someone who leads, and it is surprisingly easy to spot once you know to look for it. You see it when a small decision comes up and your employee makes the right call without asking. You see it when someone flags a problem before it becomes a crisis. You see it when they push back on your idea because they think you are wrong, and time proves them right more often than not.
Ownership is the second trait. The best bench candidates talk about the station as theirs. They refer to our revenue, our viewers, our equipment. That language matters. It tells you who is emotionally invested in the outcome and who is just cashing a check.
The third trait is the most underrated. You need people who will tell you when you are wrong. Every owner I know who has built a strong station has at least one employee who will walk into the office, close the door, and say something the owner doesn’t want to hear. If nobody on your staff does that, you do not have a bench. You have an echo chamber.
Practical steps to start this quarter
Identify one person who could take on more responsibility in the next six months. Have a direct conversation with them about what that would look like. Put it in writing. Give them a small stretch assignment and see how they handle it. If they handle it well, give them another. If they don’t, have an honest conversation about what they need to develop.
Document your key processes. Not War and Peace. Short, readable checklists that cover what happens when the automation fails, when a big advertiser calls with a complaint, when the tower site alarm goes off at 2 a.m. If only you know how to handle those situations, you are the weak link in your own station.
And start paying attention to what your best people actually want. Not everyone wants to be a manager. Some of your strongest operators want more technical challenge, or flexible scheduling, or a path to ownership someday through an ESOP or partnership structure. You cannot retain good people if you don’t know what they want.
The LPTV stations that will thrive over the next decade are not the ones with the biggest towers or the most channels. They are the ones with deep enough leadership to weather transitions, absorb shocks, and keep operating when the owner takes a long overdue vacation. Build that bench now, while the business is stable enough to afford the investment.
