Tag Archive for: leadership

Blog on Middle Management Isn’t the Problem. Removing It Might Be.

Middle Management Isn’t the Problem. Removing It Might Be.

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Is Middle Management Making a Comeback?

The management layer may shrink, but turning strategy into local decisions is becoming more valuable, because AI can increase the supply of ideas faster than an organization increases its capacity to judge and implement them.

Jay and Steve, two captains (a.k.a. middle managers), talked at Jay’s outpost near Asmar, Afghanistan. The communities wanted prosperity; we wanted young men to have alternatives to fighting. Their solution was brilliant: a trade school. The school produced 1,250 skilled people per year, boosting the economy and the quality of local construction. That effort helped motivate the insurgent groups in the area to stop fighting and reconcile with their communities.

I think about the ongoing trend to eliminate management layers and wonder: Could I have led 800 paratroopers in combat successfully without the layers between me and the frontline? We were spread across seven locations, some only accessible by helicopter, in Afghanistan’s deadliest region. Jay led close to 100 troops, and Steve was an engineer. Their brilliant innovation would never have crossed my mind, or theirs individually. I could provide the strategy, but needed the Jays and Steves to determine the best ways to implement it on the ground. [See Break the Bottleneck].

In short, these two mid-level leaders interpreted the vision, combined local knowledge with expertise, and owned implementation. This level of disciplined initiative is what you miss when you cut too much mid-level leadership.

Companies can reduce payroll by cutting middle management, and moving ideas from the front line to senior leaders might speed up. The risks are less obvious, such as bottlenecks, burnout, and employee drift, and the penalties are likely to compound as AI proliferates. How can you maintain the right balance and recognize when something is off?

Three Questions to Ask Repeatedly

  • Decision Flow: How well are ideas turning into decisions? Middle management can serve as an important filter in reducing the number of decisions coming to your level, either by approving the idea at their level or sending not-ready-for-prime-time ideas back to the drawing board. If your plate is overloaded with decisions needing your approval, you need an empowered layer below you.
  • Implementation Capacity: How well are decisions being executed? Mid-level leaders organize the work so decisions translate into appropriate action at the right standards. When you are consumed in orchestrating implementation, you reduce your capacity to create the future.
  • Learning and Adapting: How do we spot problems early, learn from them, and develop people? Mid-level leaders are often the first line of defense in solving problems, addressing employee performance, adapting to unexpected situations, and keeping employees engaged and growing. If you find yourself solving problems, telling people what to do next, and keeping employees engaged, then you are firefighting rather than building prosperity.

Pain and Perspective

Jay and Steve did more than carry out a plan. They understood the intent, saw an opportunity I could not see from my position, and turned it into action. As AI accelerates ideas, companies will need that same capacity to decide, execute, and adapt close to the work. The right balance gives people room to lead without sending every decision upward, leaving coordination to whoever has time left, or making employee development and engagement an afterthought.

Blog on Service Without the Self-Sacrifice

Service Without the Self-Sacrifice

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The Costs of Glamorizing Self-Sacrifice

Many years ago, I was leading 150 cavalry troopers in a 96-hour military exercise. I had absorbed all the leadership ideas that glamorize selfless service, so I insisted on eating last and staying awake the entire time. Invariably, battles would break out, so I missed most meals. As the exercise ended, I passed out from exhaustion for 18 hours. I woke up to find people waiting for me to tell them what to do. [See Break the Bottleneck].

A part of me recognized that this was unsustainable. Something had to change. But how could I be a selfless leader in any other way?

Another part of me wondered, “Maybe you’re not cut out for this. Maybe you don’t have what it takes to lead. Maybe you’re just not enough.”

Pain and Perspective

I was stressed out, burned out, and beating myself up. Wash, rinse, repeat. I considered leaving the Army altogether. I wondered: was opting out the right takeaway?

I asked one of my mentors, Doug. He listened carefully and asked, “What does selfless service mean to you?”

“You put everyone’s needs before your own.”

“How well is that working for you? What’s the cost of self-sacrifice?”

“I’m always exhausted. I get frustrated more easily, and I snap more often. I’m starting to resent the Army’s unreasonable demands. I feel like I’m not good enough or strong enough to lead, even though I know I have the skills for it.”

“What would service without self-sacrifice look like?”

“I guess it would be like the safety message about oxygen masks on an airplane; put on your mask before helping others.”

“What would that do for you?”

“I could serve better and longer.”

Leaders learn through pain and perspective. The pain comes from experience — there’s good pain and bad pain — but you risk drawing the wrong conclusions.

Perspective comes from mentors and advisors who help you see issues from a different vantage point.

Keeping the Cup Full

Doug helped me see that glamorizing self-sacrifice, whether in the Army’s value of “selfless service” or the notion of servant leadership, was counterproductive. I had accepted a damaging, untrue storyline. It was unhealthy for me and those I served, and it set a poor example for aspiring leaders.

Of course, there are circumstances when you sacrifice yourself for your people and the common good, but those are the extremes. You cannot pour from an empty cup. I learned—and am still learning—how to recognize the signals of depletion and give myself permission to recharge.

Disidentifying leadership from self-sacrifice was transformative for me. Just as you cannot see the label from inside the jar, I couldn’t see the costs of entangling these two ideas until Doug helped me reframe.

That’s the value of having mentors and advisors like Doug. It’s not about fixing weaknesses, but providing perspective so you continuously evolve as a leader.

Self-sacrificing leadership spiral graphic - blog on Service Without the Self-Sacrifice
Blog on How to Address Negativity Bias.

How to Address Negativity Bias

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How does negativity bias affect what shows up when you show up?

Did you ever notice that your phone’s auto-suggestions seem set to negative? Every time I type “terr,” the phone’s system suggests the word terrible. I rarely use that word, but I often use terrific.

It happened again today, prompting this thought: how much are we surrounded by negativity bias? Google’s algorithm suggesting “terrible” means that people are much more likely to text “terrible” than “terrific.” The language you use affects what shows up when you show up.

Human beings have a hardwired negativity bias. The amygdala part of our brain is highly sensitive to danger and threats; a capacity that keeps us alive. Social media algorithms picked up on what demagogues figured out centuries ago: the easiest way to mobilize emotion is to incite fear, anger, or resentment.

That approach tends to work in the media and politics, but can be highly damaging to your business. One of the reasons for DEI’s implosion in the workplace, for example, is its common practice of pitting people against each other. You wind up with a negative mirror effect: suspicion invites suspicion. People see what they believe, so suspicion leads to resentment, retaliation, and conflict.

Managers soon realized that people suspicious of one another have a hard time working together.

What to do instead?

You cannot control someone’s mirror; you can only control your own, but what you do with your mirror influences others.

I learned the truth of this in Afghanistan. The more we looked for and accentuated opportunities to work together positively, the more local elders and officials responded positively. Going positive and going first prompted an upward spiral of cooperation and trust. Yes, some threw the efforts back in our faces. They were few and far between, however, and their response placed them in a different category. The vast majority responded positively, leading to a big insurgent group agreeing to stop fighting and, eventually, switch sides.

Apply this mirror effect to the workplace. You create fear when you show up angry or suspicious. How do your employees react? Some tend to fight back, saying your characterizations are not justified. Others may flee. You may also see “fawn” reactions. The rest will freeze. None of these reactions boost productivity or performance.

What if you turned your mirror positive? After all, what you believe is what you see. When you start looking for and acknowledging positive performance, you find more of it as people are drawn to the reinforcement. Yes, you will still see the problems when they surface, because your amygdala is still firing. You just won’t allow negativity to become the default.

I can already hear the teeth-grinders complaining that this approach lowers standards and coddles people. It’s just the opposite. Going positive and going first allows you to set higher standards, have confidence in attaining them, and soar to new heights.

Visual models play a vital role in getting everyone to understand the approach and their role in it, which is why they have such a powerful effect. My 3-Discipline Leadership System® uses visual models to show you and your employees how to use three powerful levers (Strategic Foresight, Empowering Oversight, and Courageous Insight) to turn mirrors positive and create the upward spiral that leads to enduring prosperity.

If getting your employees on the same leadership playbook appeals to you, let’s set up a diagnostic call.

Blog on Accountability Without the Resentment.

Accountability Without the Resentment

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How Accountability Works

Accountability was an elusive leadership challenge for me. I toggled between harping on small problems while treating good performance as “just doing your job” and overindexing on positive reinforcement while ignoring small problems. The first approach undermined excellence, and the second created chronic low performers. I knew what to do: create accountability that continuously improved performance and promoted innovation, but I didn’t know how.

Ted Versus Alice

I love Apple TV’s show, Ted Lasso. Ted is a former American football coach who gets hired to coach a British men’s football team. This season, he’s coaching the Women’s Team. His leadership lessons are typically brilliant.

I think Ted missed a trick in this latest episode (spoiler alert). His assistant coach, Alice Chilton, feels she’s not getting the respect she’s due from the players and begins coming down hard on them. She criticizes even the smallest error sharply and makes the players do excessive laps when they push back.

Ted gives Alice one of his characteristic stories, this one about how he used to come on too strong when barbecuing meat. He learned to poke and prod less, and the meals turned out better. Alice gets it, but doesn’t seem to see herself in the story.

She comes down hard on the team at halftime during the next game. Afterward, Ted suspends Alice for the final game of the season. She’s shocked, angry, and probably a bit confused about what she did wrong.

What Could Ted Do Instead?

I learned after years of trial and error that your most productive accountability mindset is “it’s not me against you, it’s us against the problem.” When a problem occurred, I used to get all worked up and deliver a lecture. It corrected the immediate error, but created resentment and little improvement in overall performance.

Things improved with the new mindset and a simple, three-step process: 1) identify the problem, 2) note the impact, and 3) decide how to do it better next time. For something that involved poor judgment or negligence, I added a fourth step: how will you make it right?

Imagine Ted Lasso taking this approach with Alice.

Step 1. “Alice, I saw you berating the team at halftime, calling their performance shameful. Help me to understand where you are coming from on this.”

Step 2. “What’s the impact of this approach? … I see players demoralized and frustrated, which is damaging their performance. This isn’t like you. What else is going on?”

Step 3. “Let’s talk about better ways to correct player performance …”

Step 4. “Alice, those were damaging words you used. How will you make it right?”

Supportive Accountability

I call this approach Supportive Accountability, part of my 3-Discipline Leadership System®.

The beauty of the system is the how-to approach for the most challenging leadership tasks like accountability. You don’t get a bunch of theory or lectures on what to do; you get simple, repeatable, and teachable processes that create team-powered momentum, so you can go from fighting today’s fires to building tomorrow’s prosperity.

3-Discipline Leadership System® - blog on Accountability Without the Resentment
Blog on Nick Saban Didn't Change Alabama's Culture. He Deepened It.

Nick Saban Didn’t Change Alabama’s Culture. He Deepened It.

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How Culture Change Works

JCPenney was in decline and desperate to modernize. In 2011, the board hired Ron Johnson, the Apple executive who had helped create one of the most successful retail experiences in the world.

It seemed like an inspired choice.

Johnson moved quickly. He eliminated coupons and constant markdowns, redesigned stores, and tried to transform JCPenney’s relationship with its customers.

There was only one problem: the customers did not want the relationship he was offering.

For generations, JCPenney shoppers had enjoyed hunting for bargains. Coupons and sales were not merely pricing tactics; they were part of the experience. Johnson tried to replace that experience without understanding what it meant to the people who valued it.

Sales collapsed. Johnson was fired after 17 months, and JCPenney brought back his predecessor to repair the damage. But some damage cannot be reversed simply by restoring the coupons.

The Pattern Behind Success and Failure

We’ve seen versions of this story in businesses, sports teams, nonprofits, and government agencies. A new leader arrives with fresh ideas and a mandate to shake things up, only to crash into a cultural wall.

Sometimes people simply resist. Other times, the culture appears to change, but something never feels quite right. The new behaviors seem forced. The values sound imported. The organization loses a piece of itself.

What’s going on, and how can you create culture change that works?

Culture graph in Nick Saban Didn't Change Alabama's Culture. He Deepened It. blog.

Culture is the set of norms that govern behavior. Those norms develop from all three layers: Context, Concept, and Content. Culture-change efforts falter when leaders overlook any one of them.

Context is what makes your company or team unique: it’s the intersection of history, identity, geography, mission, shared experiences, and deeply held beliefs.

At JCPenney, bargain hunting was woven into the company’s identity and its relationship with customers. Removing it did more than change prices. It disrupted a ritual. For loyal customers, the change felt less like modernization and more like betrayal.

Concept identifies the principles that embody your unique context and advance your mission. It answers: Given who we are and what we are here to accomplish, what values and standards should guide us?

Content translates those principles into behavior. What does this value look like when we are making decisions, serving customers, resolving conflict, or responding to mistakes? What behaviors do we want, and what behaviors are unacceptable?

Where the Layers Meet

The intersection of Context and Concept is Authenticity.

Values feel authentic when they grow from the organization’s identity and aspirations. Culture-change efforts often fail here because leaders try to graft someone else’s values, language, or practices onto their organization. The words may sound impressive, but people know they do not sound like us.

When you honor the context, change feels like growth. Ignore it, and change feels like treason.

The intersection of Concept and Content is Accountability.

Institutionalizing culture often fails here. Leaders announce new values but never define the behaviors that express them. People ignore what is written on the walls and watch what happens in the halls and on the calls.

What gets praised? What gets tolerated? Who gets promoted? What happens when a high performer violates the values?

Without clear examples of what right looks like and what is not acceptable, people interpret the values however they please. Conveniently, those interpretations tend to justify whatever they’re already doing.

Successful culture change, therefore, comes from alignment.

Context: Is this true to who we are?

Concept: Does it embody who we want to become?

Content: Does it express how people should behave?

When all three align, culture change does not require people to abandon their identity. It invites them to become a better version of it.

Saban’s Magic

Nick Saban’s transformation of Alabama football is a powerful example. He honored the program’s championship tradition, built the culture around discipline, relentless improvement, and doing ordinary things extraordinarily well, and translated those standards into “The Process.” He got players to focus on executing the next play correctly rather than obsessing over the scoreboard.

Accountable daily behavior turned aspirations into championships.

The 3 Layers process works magic when you want to strengthen your existing culture rather than change it. The authentic clarity boosts buy-in and makes accountability easier and more supportive.

Ready to strengthen your culture? Let’s talk.

Blog on The Most Dangerous Employee at Johnsonville Was the CEO.

The Most Dangerous Employee at Johnsonville Was the CEO

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Johnsonville CEO Ralph Stayer realized he had a problem employee. This employee was a senior leader who was indispensable in all the wrong ways. He micromanaged. He made all of the decisions. He did the important things himself because he didn’t trust anyone else to do them.

The result, Stayer recognized, was a loss of initiative and responsibility among his employees. Instead of growing, this leader’s employees seemed less capable than when they were first hired. The quality of Johnsonville’s sausages declined.

Something had to change.

Stayer knew this leader could learn and grow because the leader was Stayer himself.

This story resonates with me because I love Johnsonville sausages, and I’ve found myself in a similar position. I am a recovering bottleneck (the picture below is me admitting that during my Break the Bottleneck keynote).

Chris Kolenda speaking in his Break the Bottleneck keynote.

Nearly every leader I’ve met who is a bottleneck got that way because they care deeply. You don’t want anything to go wrong; you want your employees to succeed; you want your clients delighted; you want the buck to stop with you; and you want to model accountability.

You hire capable people, but they gradually become less capable because they have so little at stake. When you make the important decisions, solve the difficult problems, and rescue them from every struggle, you deprive them of the experiences that build judgment and confidence.

Capability doesn’t remain stationary. What isn’t exercised deteriorates.

It’s like strength training. If you lift the weight for someone, you may prevent them from struggling, but you also prevent them from getting stronger. Of course, you don’t ask someone who can lift 25 pounds to lift 250. Empowerment without preparation isn’t leadership; it’s abandonment.

Stayer learned that he couldn’t simply announce that people were now empowered and walk away. He had spent years teaching them to depend on him. Reversing that dependency required a journey of progressively greater challenges, clearer responsibility, coaching, and room to struggle.

His role changed from solving people’s problems to creating the conditions in which they could solve increasingly difficult problems themselves.

I created the 3-Discipline Leadership System® to give you a safe, effective, and teachable way to create Team-Powered Momentum so you can move from being the bottleneck to becoming the architect of momentum. You’ll spend less time fighting today’s fires and more time building tomorrow’s prosperity.

I invite you to complete this sentence, “With greater team-powered momentum, I could _____.” Identify a dozen results, benefits, and outcomes you could achieve.

What did you come up with?

P.S. Stayer wrote that transferring quality ownership to frontline teams eventually helped reduce rejects from 5% to under 0.5%.

Blog on You Collect What You Project.

You Collect What You Project

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Who surrounds you?

I was in Tampa this week with a mentor group I invest in, working on our storytelling and keynotes. These inspiring people remind me that community is vital to growth.

I did not always believe that.

I used to think asking for help or advice was an admission of weakness. I spent my first five years as a consultant lone-wolfing it. Not coincidentally, those were also the years when I made my most expensive mistakes.

Eventually, I grew tired of my unforced errors and missed opportunities. I invested in a business mentor, and my business took off. More importantly, I found greater joy, deeper growth, and more meaningful impact. I’ve invested in myself ever since.

Think M&Ms: You learn from mistakes or mentors. The latter is more fun and much less expensive.

You cannot read the label from inside the jar. Who is helping you see what you cannot see for yourself? How are you investing in your success?

A Deeper Observation

Your closest relationships are both a mirror and a mold. They reveal who you are while shaping who you become.

I have been fortunate to have terrific mentors and colleagues who strengthened me personally and professionally. But I also noticed a troubling pattern: I seemed to attract needy and manipulative people too. When I distanced myself from one, another often appeared.

At first, I blamed them. Then I became curious about myself.

I realized that I was projecting an energy that made these relationships more likely. Perhaps it was an excessive need to be helpful. Perhaps weak boundaries masquerading as generosity. Perhaps the quiet satisfaction of being needed.

That realization did not make me responsible for anyone else’s behavior. It made me responsible for my own presence.

You collect what you project.

See this video on the three types of people that affect you: Sappers, Trappers, and Zappers (the discussion begins at the 9:00 mark).

The mentor group I have invested in elevates both my business and my inside game. That inside game is like the ocean floor: foundational to our world, yet often the part we understand least.

For years, I have embraced the ancient Greco-Roman philosophy of agency: you cannot control external events, but you can control your response. I would now add an important complement:

You may not control who or what enters your world, but you can choose the energy with which you meet it.

Our emotional energy reportedly sends an electromagnetic signal that people can feel 4 to 7 feet away. As a leader, you project emotional energy every day: calm or anxiety, confidence or insecurity, abundance or scarcity, curiosity or judgment. People sense it long before they hear your carefully chosen words, and it affects their performance.

What do the people around you reveal about the energy you project?

I’d love to discuss this topic further with you. Simply comment below. I enjoy responding to your questions and observations. Thank you for all of the replies to last week’s newsletter about how I experienced the dangers of servant leadership (click the link to read). I’m certainly not alone!

Blog on The Leadership Virtue That’s Burning You Out.

The Leadership Virtue That’s Burning You Out

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I used to believe that being a leader meant being a servant: available 24 hours a day to solve problems, make decisions, and come up with new ideas.

At first, it felt wonderful. People came to me for everything. I felt needed. Helpful. Even heroic.

Can you relate to that?

Then, problems and decisions piled up. I spent my days firefighting instead of building the future. People waited for me to tell them what to do. I became the bottleneck.

I was once so convinced of my own indispensability that I stayed awake through an entire 96-hour military exercise.

What could possibly go wrong?

By the end of the exercise, I was babbling nonsense and confusing 150 people. I crashed and slept for 18 hours straight. People stood still, waiting for me to wake up.

At first, I was upset at the lack of initiative. Then, it dawned on me that I created this problem. I was indispensable in all the wrong ways.

The belief that I had to be a servant created internal expectations and behaviors that led to dependency and burnout. My personal life, relationships, and well-being all suffered.

From Servant to Service

Servant leadership was a great idea when it first came out. It was a necessary corrective to selfish, me-first leadership that placed privileges over people. The intentions were the best: serve the organization and its people.

For years, I had accepted without question that servant leadership was the only noble way to lead. I even highlighted it in my book, Leadership: The Warrior’s Art.

I began to question the wisdom of “servant” leadership after the hard knocks consistently led me and others I knew into dependency and burnout.

The verb, to serve, can take two directions. Servant is one direction, leading to a loss of agency and ending in subservience. Service is the other direction, using your gifts to advance the common good, while retaining your agency.

Plenty of people will admonish that I was practicing it wrong, and therein lies the rub. Words create thoughts that result in actions: perverse behaviors can arise when you subordinate yourself to your employees, bosses, and organization.

There’s a sensible way to embrace the spirit of service without succumbing to servitude.

I call it service-centric leadership. You serve your people and organization as a steward of growth, standards, and performance; you develop people and hold them accountable for doing their jobs; and you obey the oxygen mask principle so you have energy and endurance to go the distance.

I’m keen to get your thoughts on the difference between being a servant and being of service.

Comment below.

Blog on Two Leaders. One Deadline. Very Different Outcomes.

Two Leaders. One Deadline. Very Different Outcomes.

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When the Deadline Becomes the Mission

Two federal leaders reportedly received extraordinary, short-notice requests in advance of America’s 250th anniversary: turn the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool “American flag blue” and help create a new $250 bill featuring President Trump.

One deadline produced a fiasco. The other produced an act of courage.

Reflecting on the Pool

The Reflecting Pool project bypassed normal competitive bidding and was rushed toward completion before July 4. For a brief time, it appeared to work. Then the lining began peeling, and the problems surfaced.

Officials blamed vandalism. Former Olympian David Hearn, who said he merely touched a loose piece of lining, was arrested and charged with felony property destruction.

Then the story changed.

Documents provided to prosecutors after Hearn’s indictment reportedly revealed “a rushed and flawed installation process,” repeated failures during installation, and extensive peeling before Hearn ever approached the pool. Prosecutors moved to dismiss the case, saying the damage resulted from a botched installation rather than vandalism as the Department of the Interior had initially represented.

The deadline had become the mission. Normal safeguards became obstacles. Speed displaced judgment. When the result failed, the search for a culprit overwhelmed the search for the truth.

The Courage to Speak Up

Patty Collins, then director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, reportedly faced a similarly unrealistic request. Patty and I served together in the Pentagon and Afghanistan and have remained friends ever since.

According to various news reports, senior Treasury officials wanted the bureau to help develop a $250 bill featuring President Trump. There were a few complications. The United States does not have a $250 denomination. Federal law prohibits placing a living person on currency. Congress had not authorized the bill. And creating a secure new banknote normally takes six to eight years.

You cannot simply adjust a few dials and start cranking out money. Apparently, even the federal government has limits.

Patty reportedly explained that she had no objection to the concept, but there was no lawful or responsible way for her agency to produce the bill on the requested timeline. She also noted that her bureau was not the approving authority.

She was subsequently removed from her position.

These two episodes center on Keen Judgment, one of the nine accelerators in the 3-Discipline Leadership System® (see video here).

Keen Judgment is the ability to assess reality, weigh competing risks and perspectives, and determine what the moment requires. It enables leaders to make sound decisions when information is incomplete, pressures are intense, and no option is risk-free.

In both cases, the desired outcome collided with reality.

One agency pushed ahead, weakened safeguards, and eventually blamed someone who appears not to have caused the damage.

One leader surfaced the problem and accepted the personal consequences of telling senior officials what they did not want to hear.

How Do You Develop Keen Judgment in Your Organization?

Begin by making your values and standards explicit. Then discuss what should happen when they collide:

  • What happens when speed conflicts with quality?
  • What happens when one value conflicts with another?
  • What happens when accomplishing the mission requires violating a standard?
  • Who has the authority to pause the work?
  • How should someone challenge an unrealistic directive?

These conversations are especially important when delegating consequential work. Shared standards help people understand where they have freedom to improvise and where they must stop, question, or elevate the decision.

Why It Matters Even More Today

Keen judgment is increasingly vital. AI will produce more ideas and make action possible at unprecedented speed. But speed does not make an idea wise, lawful, or executable. It merely gets us to the consequences faster.

The leaders you cannot afford to lose are often the ones willing to place a dose of reality on an exciting idea before it becomes an expensive fiasco.

If loyalty is your organization’s only implied value, you will not create disciplined initiative. You will create blind obedience and flattering agreement.

And eventually, the epoxy begins to peel.

Blog on Are You the Wrong Kind of Indispensable.

Are You the Wrong Kind of Indispensable?

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Are you steering the ship or building the crew?

I saw The Odyssey last weekend and left thinking about five leadership dilemmas Odysseus faced. One episode from the original story raises a vital leadership question:

Are You the Right Kind of Indispensable?

After years of wandering the open seas, Odysseus receives a gift from Aeolus, keeper of the winds. Aeolus seals the dangerous winds inside a leather bag, leaving only the favorable breeze that will carry Odysseus and his crew home.

Odysseus personally steers the ship for nine days, apparently without sleeping, while guarding the mysterious bag. He does not explain what it contains or share responsibility for navigating the ship.

On the tenth day, Ithaca finally comes into view. Exhausted, Odysseus falls asleep.

His crew becomes suspicious. Perhaps the bag contains treasure Odysseus plans to keep for himself. They open it, releasing the winds. A violent storm blows them away from Ithaca just as they are about to reach home.

Odysseus had gotten them within sight of their destination. But had he prepared them to reach it without him micromanaging? He was the wrong kind of indispensable, and it eventually cost his crew their lives.

What is the Wrong Kind of Indispensability?

Many CEOs and senior leaders like you face their own version of this dilemma. You discover that personally intervening in troubled projects gets results. You solve difficult problems, make sound decisions, and keep priorities moving.

Each rescue confirms your value. Meanwhile, the organization learns to wait.

People stop developing their judgment because you already have the answer. Problems move upward. Decisions collect at the top. You work harder and sleep less while the organization’s momentum slows.

I’ve made this mistake myself, staying awake for an entire 96-hour military exercise. I believed that being constantly awake made me a responsible leader. By the end, I was babbling incoherently before falling asleep for 18 hours while people waited on me for decisions.

I was the wrong kind of indispensable: people relied on me for things they could, with a little training and development, do reasonably well on their own.

Becoming the Right Kind of Indispensable

Once I learned how to develop people and teams to solve problems, make sound decisions, and take initiative to seize opportunities and reduce risks, I found how to be the right kind of indispensable.

That involved matters such as strategy, building a culture capable of executing the strategy and adapting to changing situations, and developing the leaders and teams who could thrive in chaos and uncertainty.

Moving from dependency to team-powered momentum saved countless lives in Afghanistan and has been the key to my clients growing their prosperity dramatically over the past 12 years. Doing so requires more than delegation. It means developing three organizational disciplines.

Strategic Foresight gives people direction. They understand the destination, recognize changing conditions, and anticipate what lies ahead.

Empowering Oversight distributes responsibility while preserving standards. People know what decisions they can make, what risks they may accept, and when they need to sound the alarm.

Courageous Insight builds the judgment and confidence to act. People raise concerns, challenge assumptions, and take disciplined initiative without waiting for the leader to seize the helm.

Together, these disciplines allow you to move from detailed control to directive control; from personally steering every ship to building crews capable of navigating changing winds while you organize the way home.

The goal is not to make you dispensable; it is to make you the right kind of indispensable.

P.S. I am developing an in-depth assessment oriented on the three disciplines, so you gain a clear view of the strengths you can lean into and areas you can boost. Once you get the debrief, you gain access to the entire 3-Discipline Leadership System®, which provides simple, repeatable processes you can use to develop others. It is your shortest path to team-powered momentum and moving you into the right kind of indispensability.

Click here to see if this is the right fit for you.