One of the easiest leadership traps to fall into is this:

• You see the situation.
• You’ve done something similar before.
• You know how you would handle it now.

So you tell your teammate what to do.

It feels efficient.
Helpful, even.

But there’s a cost most leaders don’t notice until later.

When you consistently tell your team what to do, you
quietly take away their chance to learn how to think
through it themselves.

You take away:

• their opportunity to collaborate
• their chance to assess and adjust
• their ability to try, learn, and self-correct

Over time, something predictable happens.

Small decisions come back to you.
Then slightly bigger ones.

Eventually, it feels like everything needs your input.

Not because your team is incapable.

But because they were never given space to develop
their own judgment.

This is one of the hardest shifts for leaders moving from
expert to leading experts.

It’s uncomfortable to step back when you believe you
already see the way forward.

And it’s exactly the shift that creates innovative,
self-sufficient teams.

If this tension feels familiar and you want space to talk it
through, I offer a free 30-minute leader thinking session.

It’s a conversation with a thinking partner, not another
set of instructions.

Click to connect with me at LinkedIn! 

Click here to watch the clip about beliefs that may limit you.