If you read my article When it Feels Easier to Just Do it Yourself , you might have recognized yourself in it. Solving problems all day long–in emails, in meetings, in direct messages, in the hallways…Doing mental gymnastics as you jump from meeting to meeting..Carrying more of the work than you used to. Always dreaming about pausing time to just get caught up, so the work can be manageable again. And even though your team is working hard, you still feel like everything depe

The most dangerous instinct in leadership is this: “It’s easier if I just do it myself.” That instinct feels productive in the moment. It solves the immediate problem and keeps the team moving. But repeated often enough, it quietly trains your team to depend on you for answers, decisions, and direction. And eventually, you become the person holding everything together. Most leaders have said these words to themselves more times than they can count and underneath that thought

The areas of opportunity for this employee were clear to me. At a weekly 1:1, I delivered feedback, explained the behaviors I wanted to see, and followed up with an email recap to ensure clarity. It was a hard conversation in many ways— there were lots of dynamics at play, some within my control, some not. While I was focused on the current  situation, the employee voiced frustrations about past leaders and situations they felt were unfair.  I wasn’t expecting the conversatio

A Tale of Two Cooks in One Kitchen My soon-to-be-husband and I cook most of our meals at home. We have a pretty good system, too–one...