A Hard Truth for Those Who Always Step Up

You’re the one everyone counts on. You carry the weight, follow through no matter what, and take pride in doing things right.

But what if that unshakable sense of responsibility is the very thing holding you—and your team—back?

In this video, I’m sharing a hard truth I’ve had to learn the difficult way. If you’ve ever taken back a task you tried to delegate, this is for you.

• Read the video transcript

  Okay, today's video is for all my high achieving leaders out there who take ownership and responsibility to the next level.

  If you believe people are relying on you to do something, you are going to self-sacrifice whatever it takes in order to see that commitment through. I see you, I get you. I am one of you.

  And it's a beautiful trait until it's not, until you take on too much, until you lose the ability to delegate and trust others to execute as well.

  And here's what I see happen most often is we try to tiptoe into this space of inviting help in, of delegating responsibility. But as soon as we sense that that person is not going to deliver at the same level that we would deliver, we take it back and we just have this belief that now we need to execute it on our own.

  And then we feel frustrated that so much is on our shoulders and we've taken on so much responsibility and why isn't anybody else helping? But the truth is the issue really goes back to you, goes back to me, an inability to set very clear expectations with a clear expected timeline and then reinforce that expectation to see it through.

  We cannot assume that others are going to see what's needed to be able to see what's in our heads. Instead, we need to communicate it. We also can't assume that others are going to care quite as much as we do, but that doesn't mean they can't still deliver and execute.

  I end up coaching on this quite a bit because big surprise, I attract clients who struggle with similar issues that I struggle with, and it's so much easier to give the advice than to take it on my own.

  Just recently, I was planning a very large scale community event, and this very thing happened. I expected others to see what needed to be done and to just step in and take full responsibility to make it happen. And when that didn't happen, of course I just took on more responsibility myself and it felt, it felt a little overwhelming at times.

  But the truth is, I had people around me who wanted to help, but maybe they couldn't see the same vision of what needed to get done. Maybe they didn't care quite as much because they weren't as tied to the project. But then I didn't fully tap into that available resource. I didn't set clear expectations. I didn't help wrap them into the vision.

  So if you are like me and you struggle to pass ownership to others, and instead you take full responsibility yourself and end up tapped out in the end, I want to encourage you to, again, not expect that others are going to see what needs to be done on their own, not expect others to step it up to the same level that you would on their own.

  Instead, you need to identify with very crystal clear expectations. What needs to be done, when does it need to be done? Communicate that, continue to reinforce that, and enable them to help out by executing on this clear portion of the project that you have articulated for them. Stop trying to take it on all yourself. It's not efficient, it's not great leadership. You will get burned out and you will not allow the people around you to have the opportunity to grow and step up in their roles.