The Harsh Truth: Are You Leading Your Team... or Holding Them Back?

Why “being needed” might be killing your leadership without you even realizing it?

Author

Glenda Carnate
September 15, 2025

Read time: 2.5 minutes

Leadership isn’t about being omnipresent or micromanaging; it’s about empowering your team to succeed, whether you're present or not. A recent 2025 workplace study found thatcultural degradation often occurs when stressed executives model unhealthy behaviors, such as burnout, over-dependence, and bottleneck decision-making, trickle downward until entire teams adopt the same dysfunction.

If your team can’t operate effectively without your constant input, approvals, or problem-solving, then you’re not leading... you’re bottlenecking.

Ask Yourself:

  • Does every project pause until you weigh in?

  • Do team members hesitate to take initiative without your nod?

  • When you step away, does progress stall rather than continue?

  • Are you solving problems instead of empowering others to solve them?

If you answered “yes” to most of these, it’s a sign you may be unintentionally holding your team back.

Why Are Bottlenecks Dangerous?

  • Slows execution: Decisions stack up, progress stalls.

  • Stifles innovation: Ideas shrink when filtered through one person.

  • Erodes culture: Stress and micromanagement modeled at the top trickle down.

  • Burns everyone out: Leaders overwork, teams disengage, and morale drops.

Key Takeaways:

  • Empower decision-making. Trust your team to act and learn.

  • Build structures. Clear roles reduce dependency on you.

  • Coach, don’t control. Feedback builds competence and confidence.

  • Test independence. Step back and see if progress continues without you.

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