By Tom Barton, Senior Strategy Consultant
One of the biggest leadership traps isn’t making the wrong decisions. It’s making too many of them.
As leaders, we often convince ourselves we’re helping. We write the proposal because it’ll be quicker. We lead the client call because we know the answer. We step into the project because it’s drifting. We decide to approve every decision because we want consistency. Individually, these actions feel reasonable. Collectively, they create something much more dangerous. A team that waits and isn’t proactive.
Every time a leader steps in to solve a problem that someone else could have solved or do something someone else , they send an unintended message: “You don’t need to own this.”
I write this article from the position of hypocrisy as a complete and utter work control freak – I am working on it.
Over time, people stop taking initiative. Not because they lack capability. Because they’ve learnt that decisions always come from the leader anyway.
Ironically, the more capable and experienced a leader becomes, the easier it is to fall into this trap. You become faster than everyone else. Better at spotting the things that need done.
So stepping in feels efficient.
In the short term, it often is. In the long term, it creates disengagement and dependency.
Instead of building a team that acts proactively and solves problems, you become the person who has to do everything.
Your workload grows.
Decision making slows.
The organisation becomes constrained by your capacity.
Your standards drop because you are juggling to many plates.
The irony is that this usually comes from good intentions. You want high standards. You want consistency.
The best leaders understand that they shouldn’t solve every problem and do every task.
They should build people who can.
That means stepping back and allowing others to take control.
The organisations that scale are the ones where leadership capability is continuously multiplied throughout the business.
Share the control!
