Create Opportunities to Lead

Do you feel as though your team members are not fully embracing their responsibilities? Are you frustrated that they complete assigned tasks but rarely take ownership, make decisions, or step forward to lead?

It is easy to conclude that people lack initiative or simply do not want greater responsibility. But before reaching that conclusion, we should ask whether they have been given a genuine opportunity to lead. Have we entrusted them with meaningful decisions—or merely assigned tasks while retaining all the authority?

People cannot fully embrace responsibilities they have never truly been allowed to own.

I was that leader.

I had difficulty trusting that my team members would get things right. I delegated tasks, but I frequently withheld the authority and context they needed to take genuine ownership of them.

Because I wanted to control the final product, I would parse out pieces of work and provide just enough information for each person to complete the assigned task. I often failed to explain why the work mattered, how it connected to the larger objective, or what decisions they were empowered to make along the way.

I thought I was protecting the quality of the work.

In reality, I was teaching people to wait for me.

They could complete the task I assigned, but they could not anticipate what might be needed next. They could not confidently adjust when circumstances changed because they did not understand the larger purpose. When a decision had to be made, it came back to me because I had never given them the authority to make it.

I was distributing work without distributing ownership.

Meanwhile, I was trying to keep too many balls in the air. Because every important decision still flowed through me, I became overwhelmed. Details were inevitably missed, deadlines became more difficult to meet, and the team could move only as quickly as I could respond.

I blamed their lack of ownership without recognizing that I had created the conditions that discouraged it.

I was not developing leaders. I was developing followers who had learned to wait for instructions.

Eventually, I had to confront the uncomfortable truth: I was the problem. I had become the bottleneck preventing the team from getting more done.

If I wanted my people to grow into leaders in their own right, I had to loosen the reins. I needed to stop viewing delegation as simply transferring tasks and begin treating it as an opportunity to develop judgment, confidence, and ownership.

That required me to clearly communicate and document where we needed to go and why the destination mattered. I needed to define the desired outcome, establish appropriate guardrails, provide the necessary resources, and then give people the authority to determine how to accomplish it.

Authority without context can create unnecessary risk. Context without authority creates frustration. People need both if we expect them to take ownership.

The beginning was rocky.

My team members made mistakes as they became accustomed to exercising greater judgment. I made mistakes as I learned when to provide guidance and when to step back. There were moments when taking control again would have been faster and more comfortable.

But the purpose was greater than completing the next task.

A leader’s number one responsibility is to develop more leaders. That development cannot happen through observation alone.

People need meaningful opportunities to make decisions, solve problems, experience consequences, and learn from the results.

As we continued, something powerful happened.

People became more confident in their judgment. They began solving problems without waiting for me. They anticipated needs, proposed solutions, and assumed responsibility for outcomes rather than merely completing assignments.

Together, we grew. The team became more self-sufficient, vastly more productive, and far less dependent upon me.

The capability had been there all along. What had been missing was the opportunity to exercise it.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Where might you be holding on too tightly today?
Are you giving your people tasks—or are you giving them genuine ownership?
Do they understand where the organization is going, why their responsibility matters, and what decisions they are trusted to make?
What might happen if you loosened the reins and allowed someone else to lead?
You may discover hidden gems whose potential remained invisible because they had never been given the authority, trust, and opportunity to demonstrate it.

CHALLENGE

Identify one meaningful responsibility you are holding too tightly today. Clearly explain the desired outcome and why it matters. Establish the necessary guardrails, transfer the appropriate authority, and allow someone else to own the path forward.
Your responsibility is not to remain at the center of every decision. It is to develop people who can make increasingly important decisions without you.
Remember, leadership is never about you.