A Leader’s greatest strength can become a barrier to growth

Many leaders have advanced in their careers because they are exceptionally good at solving problems, making decisions and delivering results. They know their business, recognise what matters and can see even difficult issues through to completion. But what happens when those same strengths start to limit the organisation’s performance?

The pattern is familiar to many members of leadership teams. Difficult questions escalate, decisions are checked with the leader, and the calendar fills up with matters that should belong to their direct reports. The leader works extremely hard, but the organisation’s ability to act independently does not develop at the same pace. Organisations often try to fix this by clarifying responsibilities, improving delegation or developing managers’ skills. These are important measures, but they do not necessarily get to the heart of the problem.

What if the bottleneck arises because the leader keeps leading in a way that once made them successful – but which, in their current role, makes the organisation dependent on them?

When a strength becomes a constraint

Succeeding as a leader requires different skills and ways of thinking at different career stages. What makes an outstanding expert or a results-driven manager does not yet guarantee success in a role that leads a broader whole.

The leadership action logics described by David Rooke and William Torbert help explain this shift. The Expert’s strength lies in their own expertise: they know the subject, recognise the right solutions and can guide others through their know-how. The Achiever, in turn, understands that not all wisdom resides with them. They involve others, set goals and build a results-oriented operation, but largely work within the existing playing field. With the Strategist’s action logic, attention extends to the playing field itself: are the goals and the assumptions behind them right, and how should the organisation change to meet future challenges?

Most leadership teams are skilled at achieving goals and solving business problems. Less often do they pause to question how the organisation is led and what kind of leadership a changing environment demands. This is not to say that expertise or results-driven management become unnecessary. But the larger the whole you lead, the more important it becomes to develop other people’s thinking and decision-making – and to renew the way the entire organisation operates.

A leader’s way of leading multiplies across the organisation

Imagine a regional manager bringing a difficult decision to their director. The director knows the business well, recognises the problem and can quickly propose a solution. The matter moves forward, and both may be pleased with how efficiently it was decided. But what actually happened? The regional manager got an answer to their problem – but did their ability to resolve similar questions in future develop?

The director could have acted differently. They could have helped the regional manager examine the assumptions and options behind the problem, or asked why the issue had landed on the director’s desk in the first place. In the first case, the director solves the problem; in the second, they develop the regional manager’s ability to lead.

In a single situation the difference may seem small, but its effects compound. Every level of leadership also learns how to lead from the way it is led. If the director takes difficult decisions upon themselves, regional managers may do the same with their own team leaders. Gradually, a culture emerges in which difficult issues are resolved at a higher level. In this way, a leader’s style can quietly build exactly the kind of dependency they are trying to dismantle.

The opposite is also possible. When a leader helps regional managers take ownership, explore options and question their own assumptions, they strengthen their ability to act independently. At its best, this way of leading also multiplies across the organisation.

Leadership culture, then, does not primarily emerge in development programmes. It emerges from what leaders repeatedly ask about, monitor and reward, where they intervene, and which decisions they leave to others.

What keeps the current leadership style in place?

If a leader is supposed to develop other people’s ability to lead, why do they so often end up solving things themselves? The easy answer would be that they cannot or will not delegate. In reality, a leadership style is sustained by several interconnected factors. At Netco Club, we explored them from four perspectives: identity, competence and quality of thinking, organisational history, and leadership structures.

• History.

  An organisation’s leadership practices arose in a particular situation and served a particular purpose. Perhaps rapid growth required strong, centralised leadership, or a difficult crisis demanded tight control. These approaches may have been entirely justified at the time, but they easily outlive the circumstances that created them. A director may still be checking regional managers’ decisions, and they in turn waiting for approval, even when their competence and authority would allow them to act independently. That is why it matters to recognise which practices that once worked are now limiting how the organisation is led.

• Identity.

  Every leader has learned what they are valued and rewarded for. If your success has been built on deep expertise, fast decision-making or problem-solving ability, these strengths can be hard to let go of. Direct reports, too, are used to getting answers from their leader. When the leader starts asking more and letting others resolve issues themselves, the change can feel inefficient to both sides. Leaders therefore need to recognise what their view of good leadership – and of their own worth – is built on.
  

• Competence and quality of thinking.

  Sometimes regional managers lack the skills or readiness to make the decisions that belong to them, and the leader has to fill the gap. But the gap may also lie with the leader: they may not know how to delegate, set clear expectations or build accountability. Beyond competence, it is a question of how leaders frame their own role. Do they see their job as personally ensuring that things are resolved correctly – or as building the organisation’s capacity to make good decisions? Training can close a competence gap, but reframing one’s leadership role requires a deeper shift in thinking.
  

• Structures.

  When leadership roles, responsibilities and the interfaces between them are unclear, decisions easily drift upwards. It is particularly important to clarify what is expected at each level of leadership. What should a regional manager decide independently, when are they expected to collaborate with others, and which matters belong to the director? How does the director know things are under control without constantly stepping in? Without a shared answer to these questions, simply urging people to take more responsibility will not change how they act.

These four factors also reinforce one another. Organisational history shapes beliefs about good leadership, structures sustain established ways of working, and leaders’ identities influence what kind of competence they value and develop. Changing a leadership culture therefore requires understanding what keeps the current way of working in place.

Leading leadership is part of the leader’s job

Leadership development is often seen as developing leaders’ skills – a task handed over to HR. But if the organisation’s way of working itself sustains dependency on senior management, individual training programmes will not be enough. Leading leadership also means building the conditions in which leaders can succeed and grow in their roles.

For a member of the leadership team, this means consciously developing both their own leadership style and the organisation’s action logic. Roles and expectations need to be clarified, competence gaps identified and old ways of working challenged. At the same time, leaders need to create situations in which their direct reports have to think in new ways. According to Nick Petrie, leaders’ thinking develops particularly through stretch assignments, exposure to different perspectives and deliberate reflection on experience. These are the means by which leaders can develop both their own and their team’s ability to make sense of increasingly complex situations.

It is therefore worth pausing to consider what opportunities you give your regional managers to grow as leaders. Are they given responsibilities that push them to look beyond their own area? Do they have to solve shared problems and engage with different viewpoints? And after difficult situations, do you stop to examine what was learned and what should be done differently next time?

Leading leadership cannot be outsourced. Every leader is responsible for the leadership capability of their own organisation. This does not mean the leader should become more involved in decision-making – rather the opposite. They should build an organisation that can make increasingly demanding decisions without their constant involvement.

A good leader delivers results. But a leader’s success should also be judged by the leadership capability they build: how independently their organisation can act, how well its leaders can think together and how quickly it can renew itself.

This may require leaders to let go of some of the very practices that once made them successful. Therein lies the difficult paradox of leadership: an organisation’s growth may require the leader to stop being its chief problem-solver.

In what ways does your leadership strengthen – or unintentionally limit – other people’s ability to lead? This blog was written by our organizational and leadership development specialist Hanna Rainio. Hanna is inspired by supporting people and organizations on their path toward sustainable growth and renewal.