You’re Doing Your Job—and Too Much of Theirs.
You started the week knowing what you needed to get done.
Instead, work came back unfinished. A decision waited for you. You fixed something you thought you had already explained.
And by Thursday, you realized you had barely touched your own job.
45 minutes. Bring one real situation. We’ll start there.
Of Course You Stepped In.
The deadline was real. Other people were counting on the result. The work had to get done, and you were accountable for it.
Letting it fail didn’t feel like a reasonable option.
So you did what capable, responsible leaders often do. You filled the gap and kept things moving.
The Short-Term Fix May Be Keeping the Long-Term Problem Alive.
Stepping in protects today’s result.
But when it becomes the only dependable way to keep the work moving, responsibility keeps finding its way back to you.
Every week you spend rescuing the team’s work is another week your own priorities move again—and the work only you can do stays unfinished.
That doesn’t make you a bad leader. It just means the quick fix that works in the moment may be one reason the same work keeps finding its way back to you.
And that can change.
Bring Me One Situation That Keeps Coming Back to You.
We’ll slow it down and reconstruct what happened.
I’ll ask questions. I’ll also tell you what I see.
Then we’ll decide what to try next. One move worth testing, not ten things you suddenly need to change.
You won’t leave with the entire problem solved. But you should see what’s happening more clearly and know what you’re going to try next.
“Can I tell you what I think happened?”
This Reminds Me of Another Leader I Worked With.
He led multiple businesses, but too many decisions and day-to-day problems still found their way back to him.
We looked at the situations that kept pulling him back in. When did stepping in make sense? When didn’t it? And what could the team carry without him taking it back?
Over time, he became more deliberate about where his attention was actually needed. The team began carrying more, and he had more room for the strategic work across his businesses.
You Don’t Have to Keep Doing Your Job and Part of Everyone Else’s.
Bring one real situation where the work, decision or responsibility came back to you.
We’ll pull it apart together and decide what is worth trying next.
45 minutes. Bring one real situation. We’ll start there.