May 23, 2026

Read Time - 4 minutes

"What got you here won't get you there." ~ Marshall Goldsmith

It was a Friday night. I happened to check my email on my phone and noticed a message from one of our associate professors who was chairing a faculty committee. "Our committee has met twice and one of my committee members has been a no-show for both meetings. Can you talk to him?"

My instinct was immediate: yes. We can't have faculty shirking their responsibilities.  I could probably handle it in ten minutes.

But I stopped.

If I stepped in to solve a problem that belonged to this chair — a problem she had both the authority and the relationship to handle — I would have undermined her. Not intentionally. But effectively. And beyond that: was my involvement, at my level, even the right response? Or would it turn a relatively small issue into something larger than it needed to be?

So instead, I replied with a question: "What have you tried so far?"

The answer came quickly: nothing. She hadn't reached out to the committee member at all.

Come Monday morning, we spent twenty minutes on the phone working through it together. I asked questions. She generated answers. We mapped out language she could use, a follow-up structure, and a clear escalation path if things didn't improve.

She left with a plan. The next week, she reported back: it had worked.

Your Expertise Has a Shelf Life

Here's the problem. You didn't get into leadership because you were bad at the work. You got there because you were good at it — great at it, probably. And one of the things that made you great was your ability to see a problem clearly and move on it fast. That instinct serves you well. But it can become a liability the moment you're leading other people's work instead of doing the work yourself.

On campus, it shows up everywhere — and it tends to wear a mask of helpfulness. The chair who handles the semester schedule themselves every single time — because the administrative coordinator "would just get it wrong" — rather than developing someone who could carry it. The dean who steps in to resolve a faculty conflict before the chair has had a chance to address it (then wonders why chairs don't bring problems to them sooner). The provost who came up through a particular college and keeps finding reasons to stay involved there and shadow-leading at the dean-level instead of managing at the provost-level.

None of them are trying to undermine anyone. But leadership communicates through behavior more than intention. And the behavior — every time — sends the same message. The team hears it without anyone saying a word: I'll handle it. Which lands as: you can't.

That message does real damage — in more directions than most leaders realize. It loads your plate with work that was never supposed to be yours, crowding out the decisions and relationships that actually require your level of attention. It quietly strips authority from the people you step over — even when your intentions are good, everyone watching draws the same conclusion about who is actually trusted to lead. And it stunts development. The people around you never build the capacity to handle harder problems, because you keep solving those problems before they get the chance.

It’s hard knowing the answer and not rushing to give it.

But when you solve it yourself, you're not leading. You're doing the same work you used to do, just with a different title.

Before You Step In

Thankfully, these patterns can be broken. Here’s how:

Know the difference between a resource and a resolver.  A resource is someone people come to for input — they bring the problem, you ask questions, they process the conversation and leave with their own answer. A resolver is someone people come to when they want the problem to disappear — they bring it, you take it, they leave empty-handed. Both feel helpful in the moment. But only one builds capacity over time. A useful question to ask yourself after every conversation: did they leave with an answer, or did they leave the problem with me? For more on this topic, read the Oncken and Wass classic Who’s Got the Monkey?

"What have you tried so far?"  When my committee chair emailed me on that Friday night, this was the question that changed the direction of the conversation. It's deceptively simple — but it does three things at once. It gives you information you don't have (often the answer, like hers, is nothing). It transfers ownership back to the person who should hold it. And it signals your belief that they're capable of figuring it out. Most leaders skip straight to the solution. This question creates the space where someone else gets to be the problem-solver.

The last resort check.  Before you step in, ask yourself one question: am I actually the last resort here, or just the fastest option? Most leaders assume their involvement is necessary. Often (if we're being honest) it isn't — it's just more efficient. There's a real difference. Necessary means the situation genuinely requires your authority, your relationships, or your level. Fastest means you could handle it in less time than it would take to coach someone else through it. That's probably true. It's also beside the point. Speed that bypasses development is expensive in ways that don't show up until later.

And if you catch yourself gravitating toward a problem you know probably isn't yours, it's worth a moment of honest reflection. Is this out of genuine concern? Is it out of habit? Or, frankly, does it just feel good to solve something? That impulse is human. It’s also worth examining.

The Bottom Line

At some point in your career, you’ve probably been on the other side of this. Someone above you stepped in, solved something that was yours, and moved on without a second thought. They thought nothing of it. You thought about it for days.

The people you lead remember those moments too.

None of this is an argument for stepping back from everything. There are situations that genuinely need your authority: a personnel matter that crosses into ethics, a timeline with no margin for error — decisions with consequences too significant to leave in developing hands.

But most of what lands on your desk isn't that. And the ability to tell the difference is one of the most important skills you can develop as a leader. It also happens to be one of the best things you can do for your calendar.

The moment you step into leadership, your job is no longer to be the most capable person in the room. It's to make the room more capable.

That Friday night email wasn't a problem to fix. It was a leadership development moment that almost got swallowed by my instinct to be helpful. The difference between those two things — fixing and developing — is where leadership actually lives.

What your team learns to carry is shaped by what you choose to leave in their hands.

Try This Before Friday

Identify one problem currently sitting on your plate that originated with someone else. Before you act on it, run the last resort check — am I actually the last resort here, or just the fastest option? If the honest answer is the latter, reach out with one question: "What have you tried so far?" Then wait. Don't offer the answer. See what they surface.

Until next week.

P.S. On June 12, the third cohort of The Designed Leader begins: developing the habits, frameworks, and systems that allow you to lead at your level — and step away from the round-the-clock work that comes from carrying what isn't yours. It's a tight group of 10 peers over 8 weeks. Learn more and apply →

Have something specific you're working through? Reply and tell me what you're navigating. I read and respond to every message.

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