The Leadership Shift That Changed Everything For Me
For a long time, I believed leadership meant having all the answers.
If someone on my team needed clarity, direction, or reassurance, I assumed it had to come from me, otherwise I wasn’t doing my job well enough. I thought being a “good leader” meant being composed at all times, emotionally neutral, and always one step ahead.
It turns out, that belief wasn’t making me a stronger leader. It was slowly burning me out.
The real turning point in my leadership journey was when I stopped believing that delegation meant I was failing.
The Myth of the All-Knowing Leader
Many of us step into leadership roles carrying invisible expectations:
You should always know what to do
You should be the hardest worker in the room
You should be everywhere, involved in everything
You should hold it together, no matter what’s happening behind the scenes
I believed that if I wasn’t deeply involved in every client project, every decision, every detail, I was losing control. In reality, staying hyper-involved didn’t make us faster or better. It slowed us down and limited everyone’s growth, including my own.
Leadership, I learned, isn’t about proving your value through exhaustion.
Vulnerability Isn’t a Liability
I also used to believe that showing vulnerability made me less credible.
I thought leaders were supposed to be unshakeable, calm, collected, and emotionally distant. Meanwhile, I had moments where I cried on team calls, admitted uncertainty, or shared that I was having a hard day.
Those moments made me real.
Letting my team see me as a human, someone with emotions, boundaries, and a full life outside of work, built more trust than any “perfect CEO” persona ever could.
People don’t need a flawless leader. They need an honest one.
Being The Hardest Worker Isn’t the Goal
Another belief I had to completely unlearn was the idea that a good leader should be the hardest worker in the room.
For years, I equated long hours and constant busyness with commitment and competence. But a leader who’s drowning is only compensating.
My role wasn’t to be everywhere at once. It was to resource my team, support them, and trust them to do the jobs they were hired to do.
The Shift That Changed Everything
The moment I shifted my focus from controlling every outcome to holding the bigger picture, everything changed.
When I trusted my team to own their work:
Communication improved
The quality of our work improved
Decision-making became smoother
The chaos quieted
And just as importantly, I improved.
Leadership stopped feeling like something I had to constantly prove. It became something I could practice with intention, trust, and clarity.
Leadership Is About Creating Space to Thrive
Letting go of perfectionism changed everything for me.
I stopped clinging to the need to have all the answers. I stopped exhausting myself trying to justify my role. I stopped confusing over-functioning with excellence.
Leadership became less about performance and more about:
Trust
Transparency
Sustainability
Not just for the business, but for the people inside it.
Including me.
If You’re In A Season of Unlearning. . .
If you’re currently unlearning:
Perfectionism
Over-functioning
The pressure to hold everything together
You’re not behind. You’re evolving.
Leadership is about creating an environment where everyone can thrive without burning out. . . including you.
And that shift? That’s where real leadership begins. 🤍
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