A little man's deputies (6)
I believe the answer is:
agents
'a little man's deputies' is the definition.
'agents' can be an answer for 'deputies' (I've seen this in another clue). I am not certain of the 'a little man's' bit.
'a little man's deputies' is the wordplay.
'little' means to remove the last letter (the word is not quite complete).
'man' becomes 'gent' (gent is a kind of man).
'deputies' becomes 'ts' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'gent' with its final letter taken away is 'gen'.
'a'+'gen'+'ts'='AGENTS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for agents that I've seen before include "Spies" , "They operate on behalf of others" , "travelling salesmen" , "Sales reps" , "Instruments" .)