If you’re running a marketing agency, you know that it comes with many challenges and pitfalls that can derail a project fast. 

As a manager, you need to be able to anticipate these issues so you can address them head-on before they spiral out of control. 

Unfortunately, it’s often easy to get into the weeds and lose sight of what’s happening until it’s too late.

One way to ensure a smoother operation is to understand the various mistakes you can make as a manager so you can avoid and prevent them. 

Here’s the thing: plenty of managers I’ve known have nodded along to advice, but then slipped right back into old habits under pressure. It’s not always just about knowing what to avoid, but really absorbing it—sort of letting those lessons knock around your head a while until they actually stick. Sometimes that means screwing up once or twice before the warning bells finally stay loud enough to matter. Nobody is immune, honestly.

It might sound obvious, but communication (or the lack of it) creeps into almost every mistake I’ve seen. Whether it’s the morning standup that gets skipped for a week, or feedback that’s conveniently postponed, gaps start to widen pretty fast. The more you’re willing to keep small check-ins going, even when everyone’s “busy,” the more likely you are to catch little issues before they’ve ballooned into something messier.

With that in mind, let’s dive into 10 common management mistakes you may encounter and how to fix them to ensure effective agency operations.