Leaders, Get Out of Your Team’s Way!

All week I’ve heard the same story from different leaders.

People are confused about the remit of their role.

They think they’re responsible for leading a team, but their leader keeps letting others go around them. Decisions get made elsewhere. Direction gets blurred. Authority quietly disappears.

Leadership isn’t about being in the middle of everything. It’s about making sure you don’t need to be.

If you’re a leader, your job is to remove obstacles. Not become one.

It’s a big job. And it comes with a real responsibility.

Most teams don’t want magic. They want something simple.
A place they feel they belong, and a clear sense of who owns what.

Here are three practical reminders for leaders who know they need to step back, but keep finding themselves pulled into the detail.

1. Decide what you are going to stop owning

If you’re in everything, your leaders are in nothing.

It’s easy to tell yourself you’re supporting or staying close. But if you’re still the person everything routes through, your team will keep acting like that’s the rule.

If everything still runs through you, something isn’t quite working yet.

Pick the work you’re going to let go of, properly. Then hold the line.

Reflect

• What am I still holding that a leader in my team should own end to end?

• Where do people still default to me because I’ve trained them to?

• What would actually break if I stepped back from this?

2. Stop rewarding shortcuts

Every time someone bypasses a leader and you engage, you teach the organisation something.

You teach them who matters. You teach them who doesn’t. You teach them how to get things done.

If you want the leadership line to mean something, act like it means something.

Reflect

• Do I redirect people back through the right leader, or do I make it easy to bypass them?

• Does the org chart match the way I’m behaving?

• Who have I accidentally undermined this month?

3. Have the conversation you keep dodging

Most role confusion exists because a conversation hasn’t happened. Or it happened once, and then behaviour drifted back to default.

Clarity isn’t harsh. It’s respectful. It’s what allows people to do good work without second guessing themselves every day.

Reflect

• Have I been clear about what this leader owns, and what they don’t?

• What expectations have I assumed, but not actually said out loud?

• Is there a conversation I know I need to have, but I’m avoiding?

Leadership isn’t being across everything.
It’s building a team that can move without you.

Strong leadership creates space. Weak leadership fills it.