The Hardest Thing I Ever Did as a Leader

I was standing about fifty yards away from a 155mm howitzer, watching my artillery crew work through a problem that could kill them if they got it wrong.

We’d had a misfire. A shell was stuck in the barrel, which meant someone had to go clear it manually. This wasn’t the kind of situation where you could afford mistakes. One wrong move and people could get seriously hurt or worse.

My team knew exactly what to do. They’d trained for this scenario dozens of times. But as their officer, every instinct I had was screaming at me to step in and handle it myself.

Instead, I forced myself to stay put.

I watched them follow the proper procedures, communicate clearly with each other, and methodically work through the problem. My hands were practically twitching to grab the tools and fix it myself. My job wasn’t to do the work—it was to make sure they had everything they needed and that the process was being followed correctly.

It took everything in me not to interfere.

Twenty minutes later, the situation was resolved safely. The crew had handled it perfectly, just like their training had prepared them to do.

That’s when it hit me like a lightning bolt: this was what real leadership actually looked like.

Not jumping in to solve every problem personally, but creating the conditions where your team could solve problems themselves. Not being the hero, but building heroes.

The Pattern I See Everywhere Now

It’s a lesson that’s shaped everything I do in my consulting work today.

I see leaders struggling with this same instinct constantly. Something goes wrong in their organization, and their first impulse is to dive in and fix it themselves. A client complaint comes in, they personally handle it. A project hits a snag, they take it over. A team member struggles with a decision, they make it for them.

On the surface, this seems totally reasonable. You’re the leader, you’re responsible for results, and you probably have the experience to handle whatever crisis has emerged faster and better than anyone else.

But when you always step in, something insidious happens.

Your team never gets the chance to develop their own problem solving skills. They become dependent on you for solutions instead of learning to think through challenges independently. They stop bringing you solutions and start bringing you problems, because they’ve learned that’s your job to figure out.

And you become the bottleneck for your entire organization. Every decision has to flow through you. Every problem lands on your desk. Your company can only move as fast as you can personally handle things.

I worked with a CEO recently who was completely overwhelmed, working 70 hour weeks and still feeling behind. When we dug into it, I discovered he was personally approving every purchase over $500, reviewing every client proposal, and getting pulled into every operational decision.

His team had learned to escalate everything upward instead of taking ownership. Not because they were incapable, but because he’d trained them that way by always stepping in.

The Leader’s Paradox

The most effective leaders I know have figured out how to do what I learned to do that day with the artillery crew: stay close enough to help if truly needed, but far enough away to let their people do what they’re trained to do.

They’ve learned when to step in and when to step back. When to coach and when to let people struggle through to their own solutions.

It’s not about being hands off or uninvolved. It’s about being involved in the right way, setting clear expectations, providing the resources and support your team needs, establishing the systems and processes that guide good decisions, and then trusting your people to execute.

That CEO I mentioned? Once we worked together to establish clearer decision making frameworks and pushed authority down to appropriate levels, his work hours dropped by 25 hours a week. More importantly, his team started solving problems he didn’t even know existed because they finally had the space and trust to own their work.

His company didn’t just survive without his constant intervention. It actually performed better.

The Question That Matters

Sometimes the most important thing you can do as a leader is resist the urge to fix everything yourself. To stand fifty yards back and let your team handle the situation they’re trained for, even when every instinct is telling you to jump in.

It’s uncomfortable. It takes discipline. But it’s how you build organizations that can scale beyond your personal capacity.

So here’s what I want you to think about: Where in your organization are you stepping in too much instead of creating space for your team to grow into their capabilities?

What would happen if you took one step back and let them take one step forward?

The Future is now

Jesus (Jes) Vargas is the Principal at DPMG Corp in Sacramento, CA. Jes and his team consult, coach and mentor business leaders in areas such as strategic planning, leadership development and Lean Thinking deployment. If you are concerned that there is not enough long-term strategic thinking going on in your organization, Jes can help. Call Jes at 916 712 6145. Or you can email him here.