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Stop Carrying. Start Leading.
What if being indispensable isn’t evidence of great leadership? What if it’s evidence that something needs to change?
For much of my career, being the person people could count on felt like part of the job.
When something went wrong, you stepped in.
When a difficult decision had to be made, you made it.
When someone needed help, you helped.
When the organization hit turbulence, you carried more of the load.
Those instincts serve many leaders extraordinarily well. They certainly served me.
But there is a point in the leadership journey when one of our greatest strengths can quietly become one of our greatest limitations.
Being valuable can become being needed. And being needed can be remarkably difficult to surrender.
The Hidden Reward of Being Indispensable
Let’s be honest.
Being needed feels good.
It tells us we matter. It reinforces our competence. It gives us a sense of control when circumstances are uncertain.
And sometimes, without realizing it, being needed becomes part of our identity.
I’m the one who can fix this.
I’m the one people come to.
I’m the one who makes sure it gets done.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any of that.
Until our need to help begins interfering with someone else’s need to grow.
That is where leadership gets interesting.
Because an organization can slowly learn:
When something becomes difficult, take it to the leader.
And the leader can simultaneously learn:
When something becomes difficult, I need to step in.
Each reinforces the other.
Eventually, the leader is carrying too much while the people around them are carrying too little.
The Harder Leadership Question
When people aren’t taking enough ownership, it is easy to ask:
“Why won’t they step up?”
I think there is a harder and much more valuable question:
“What am I doing that might be making it difficult for them to?”
That question requires some humility.
Because sometimes the behavior frustrating us in others is behavior we have unintentionally helped create.
If I continually make the difficult decisions, why would someone else develop confidence in making them?
If I repeatedly rescue the situation, how will someone learn to navigate through it?
If every important problem eventually finds its way back to my desk, am I really developing leaders?
Or am I developing dependence?
Those aren’t comfortable questions.
But meaningful growth rarely begins with comfortable questions.
Caring Is Not Carrying
There is an important distinction here.
Caring and carrying are not the same thing.
Caring builds capacity; carrying creates dependency.
Caring means coaching people, supporting them, challenging them, believing in them and holding them accountable.
Carrying means taking responsibility for something that ultimately belongs to someone else.
I have come to believe that sometimes caring deeply about someone requires us to stop carrying what they are capable of carrying themselves.
That doesn’t mean becoming distant or uncaring.
Quite the opposite.
It means caring enough to let someone struggle a little.
Caring enough to let them make a decision differently than you would.
Caring enough to let them occasionally get it wrong.
And caring enough not to steal from them the confidence that comes from discovering: "I can handle this."
Leadership Requires Letting Go
There is a paradox in leadership.
The higher we climb, the less our value should come from personally solving every problem.
Our responsibility increasingly becomes creating people, teams and systems capable of solving problems without us.
That requires something many accomplished leaders find surprisingly difficult.
Letting go.
Letting go of some control.
Letting go of always having the answer.
Letting go of being involved in every important decision.
And perhaps hardest of all, letting go of the belief that being indispensable is the same thing as being valuable.
It isn’t.
In fact, I would argue that one of the most powerful moments in leadership occurs when we can genuinely say:
"They don’t need me for this anymore.” That isn't a loss. That's leadership working.
From Indispensable to Transformational
The leader who must remain at the center of everything can only influence what they personally touch.
But a leader who develops judgment, courage, confidence and accountability in others creates influence that travels far beyond them.
That is where leadership begins becoming transformational.
Your experience still matters.
Your wisdom matters.
Your judgment matters.
Your presence matters.
But eventually, the measure of those things isn't simply how many problems you can solve.
It's how much greater the capacity of other people becomes because you were there.
This Week’s Summit signal™ Question
So here is the question I am sitting with this week, and perhaps it is worth sitting with yourself:
"Where am I still being needed because I haven't yet allowed someone else to become capable?"
Don't rush to answer it.
Just notice.
Where are people routinely bringing you decisions they could make?
Where are you solving problems that really belong to someone else?
Where might stepping back actually be a greater act of leadership than stepping in?
Then consider handing one of those things back.
Not because you care less.
Because you care enough to let someone else climb.
Keep Ascending
Ascending your inner summit isn't always about becoming more.
Sometimes reaching the next elevation requires releasing something that once helped us succeed.
Control.
Certainty.
Indispensability.
Even the need to be needed.
Because ultimately, our greatest legacy as leaders won't be the problems we solved.
It will be the people who discovered what they were capable of because we gave them the opportunity to find out.
Keep ascending.
About the Author
John Seville is the Founder and Managing Principal of Ascent Leadership Group® and creator of Ascending Your Inner Summit™. A former CEO, entrepreneur, CIO, COO, board advisor, and executive coach, he brings decades of leadership experience to helping executives become more effective leaders while developing greater capacity in the people around them.
His work is grounded in a simple belief: leadership is not only about what we achieve, but who we become along the climb and who becomes stronger because we led.
"Every summit reveals a new horizon. Every valley develops the resilience, wisdom, and perspective required to reach it." - John Seville
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