Why a leader doing it all themselves is hurting your team

Let's talk about the overfunctioning manager – the leader who somehow ends up carrying everyone else's workload as well as their own. I see this pattern constantly in our clients' businesses, and it usually starts in an unexpected place.

Many of you have heard me speak about ‘what gets rewarded gets repeated’ and I have used this term to caution managers from ‘rewarding’ employees who demonstrate incompetence in basic tasks. You know what I’m talking about – the people who demonstrate weaponised incompetence — the people who somehow cannot figure out how to load the dishwasher, update the spreadsheet, or follow the instructions that everyone else manages just fine – to get out of doing it. Then the manager gets someone else to do it because they’re frustrated, and the initial person has just effectively been rewarded. So, that’s an issue we need to face and address.

But that's not the issue I want to talk about today.

Meet the Overfunctioning Manager

This is the leader who rewrites everyone's emails, jumps into every problem, attends every meeting, and somehow ends up owning tasks that were never theirs to begin with. They aren't avoiding responsibility; they're collecting it like it's a loyalty program and/or wearing their ‘busyness’ and ‘irreplaceability’ like a badge of honour.

While this behaviour often comes from a place of care, commitment, or high standards, it can equally come from a place of insecurity or need to be important. Regardless of intent or motivation, it can create many problems in your business.

The Best Intentions

Most overfunctioning managers don't wake up thinking, "How can I stop my team from growing today?" In fact, usually it's the opposite. They want to help. Getting things done well matters to them. And they want to remove obstacles and support their people. So when a team member struggles, they step in. When something is urgent, they take over. When there's uncertainty, they become the answer.

The problem is that over time, the team starts learning an unintended lesson:

"If I wait long enough, my manager will do it."

And/or the manager inadvertently becomes ‘the answer person’.

These leaders stop encouraging people to think for themselves and come up with solutions, and do it for them instead. They provide the answers and solutions or even perform the task.

Human beings naturally adapt to their environment. If a leader consistently rescues every project, solves every problem, and makes every decision, others stop building those skills themselves. Then the business is relying on one person’s knowledge. One person’s skill. The team doesn’t develop and grow, and the leader becomes overwhelmed. Soon they're working longer hours, answering messages late at night, and wondering why leadership feels so exhausting. They become the bottleneck in every process while simultaneously feeling indispensable.

The team's confidence also takes a dive. When every piece of work gets corrected or taken back, people stop taking risks. Initiative drops. Decision-making slows. Team members who could have grown into strong leaders remain dependent because they never get the chance to fully own something.

It's a bit like teaching someone to ride a bike while never letting go of the seat. They may avoid a few wobbles, but they'll never learn to balance on their own.

Delegation

Delegation isn't abandoning people to fend for themselves. It's not throwing work over the fence and hoping for the best. Good delegation means providing enough support for success while resisting the urge to take control.

Instead of asking, "How can I solve this?", good leaders ask, "How can I help them solve this?"

Sometimes that means coaching instead of answering. Sometimes it means accepting a result that 90% of what you would have done is good enough this time. And sometimes it means letting people learn through minor mistakes rather than preventing every possible bump in the road.

One of my favourite tactics is responding to a question with a statement: ‘that’s a good question’. This can sometimes go back and forth for a bit with the team member really not understanding what I’m doing, but eventually they have an ‘aha’ moment and they realise I’m encouraging them to think for themselves and suggest a good solution or answer.

The Real Measure of a Leader

The irony of leadership is that the better you become, the less the work should depend on you personally. Your value isn't measured by how many tasks you can carry. It's measured by how capable your team becomes when you're not in the room. That’s the biggest issue I see in many of our clients’ businesses – leaders who measure their worth by their own sales, or their own accomplishments or busyness – whereas the true measure of a leader is always how well their team performs – especially when they’re not present. The best leaders are those where the team continues to perform well even when their leader is on holidays! In sales environments, I always say that a manager is only as good as their worst performer. And the leader should never be the best salesperson. They should be coaching everyone else to be the same or better than them!

So if you're the manager juggling fifteen priorities, answering questions before they've been fully asked, and quietly holding everything together with caffeine and determination, consider this your gentle reminder: You don't have to be the hero in every story.

Sometimes the most powerful thing a leader can do is step back, trust their people, and provide opportunities for their team to make mistakes. Good leaders never judge a person by their mistakes, but by how the person accepts responsibility, recovers and learns.

Time to Let Go

If this has struck a chord with you, whether you recognise it (disempowering your people) in yourself or in leaders on your team, set yourself a goal to move the needle on this. Your business (and team) will thrive if you can coach them and then get out of the way. And remember, 1% of 100 brains is always better than 100% of your own. Use not just the time and labour, but also the brain power, of your people. Everyone wins - you, your leaders, your team, and the business.

If you would like any support in developing your leaders to stop overfunctioning and start delegating and coaching more effectively, reach out at any time, because we’re always here to help.

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