The Leadership Power of Being Less Available

If you’re the kind of leader who’s always there for your team, this one’s for you.

Servant leadership is powerful, but there’s a tipping point where support turns into dependence. In this video, I’m talking about the critical difference between being strategically accessible vs. always available—and why that distinction might be the key to building a stronger, more self-sufficient team.

• Read the video transcript

  My favorite leaders to work with are servant leaders, those who genuinely care about their teams and want to pour time and energy into their people.

  But there is an over rotation in servant leadership, and you've heard me talk about it before. Sometimes we become too available, too accessible to help with every little issue, and then our employees end up not learning how to build problem solving and critical thinking skills on their own. They rely on us for everything.

  I can remember way back to my very first job after college. I was part of a rotation program, a leadership development rotation program at Boeing, and I rotated every four months to a new finance position within the company. And I can remember one of my rotation managers was just awesome, and she set up very clear one-on-ones with me early on in my rotation. So once a week I was meeting with her for an hour for a one-on-one. And the expectation set was that I was going to, I had, you know, responsibilities in my role to be pursuing on a weekly basis. And I was supposed to try to problem solve and figure it out as much as I could on my own, in between the one-on-ones, and then I could bring my questions and my issues and ideas in the one-on-one. But in between, I was supposed to try to solve as much as I could on my on my own.

  Now, she was strategically accessible, meaning I could reach out to her if I needed help along the way. I had a mentor on the team I could reach out to. So it's not like I was just left completely alone, but I was challenged to figure it out on my own as much as possible. And so instead of being always available, she was strategically accessible.

  Would your team say the same thing about you? Are you always available and so they ping you for everything? Or are you strategically accessible? If you aren't on the strategically accessible end of the spectrum, I want to encourage you to find ways to shift that direction. You are going to need to explain to your team what you're doing and why you're doing it, because otherwise the shift will just feel like you're all of a sudden giving up and not caring as much. So explain it. But this shift is going to be both freeing for you and empowering for them.