For a long time, being the one everyone relied on was my favourite part of who I was at work.
As a young VP at Brookfield, I was fiercely protective of my team. If another department criticized something we’d done, I took the heat. If a project landed on our desks late on a Friday, I stayed and did the extra myself. If someone on my team was nervous about a difficult conversation, I’d have it for them. I told myself this was good leadership. I was the shield.
And for a while, it worked. My team felt looked after. My bosses knew that if it came to me, it would get done. I felt useful, needed, and very, very tired.
What I couldn’t see then
It took me years, and stepping away, to see what was really going on.
Every time I took something on for my team, I took away a chance for them to grow. The difficult conversation I had on someone’s behalf was one they never learned to have. The criticism I absorbed was feedback they never heard. The late nights I put in were proof, to them and to me, that the work couldn’t happen without me.
I thought I was protecting them. I was keeping them small. And I was keeping myself stuck at the centre of everything.
Why so many good leaders end up here
I see this pattern all the time in the leaders I coach. They aren’t controlling or insecure in the way the leadership books describe. They’re caring. They have high standards. They’re quick, and it really is faster to do it themselves.
But underneath, something else is going on. The moment something lands on your desk, a thought shows up: I’d better handle this. They’re already stretched. It has to be done right. It arrives with a feeling, a kind of urgency, and that feeling seems to be telling you something about the situation. It isn’t. It’s telling you about your thinking in that moment. Until we see that, we act on it every time.
The trouble is that the role keeps growing and the habit doesn’t change. More scope, more people, more of the same carrying. Eventually there’s no room left to think, and that’s when the cost shows up: in your sleep, your patience, your family, and in a team that never quite steps up.
What I’d tell my younger self
Not “delegate more.” I knew how to delegate. I’d taken the courses and I had the frameworks. More tools weren’t going to help, because the problem wasn’t a missing skill. What I didn’t understand was where the pressure was coming from. I thought it came from the job. It was coming from my own thinking about the job, moment to moment, and it felt completely real.
When you start to see that, a few things become obvious:
The urge to jump in is a feeling, not an instruction. Left alone, it passes.
Your team can handle more than your worry says they can. Worry isn’t a forecast.
You already have the clarity you need. It shows up when the noise settles, not when you push harder.
That’s what I mean by less noise, not more tools. It isn’t about adding something new. It’s about seeing what’s been getting in the way.
If this sounds familiar
If you read this and thought, “that’s me,” you’re in good company. Most of the leaders I work with started right here. I created a short self-check, Are You the One Everyone Relies On?, to help you see where you are. It takes about five minutes, and it’s free.