Every manager knows the feeling. Few realise it has become a pattern.
It usually starts small.
Someone brings you a piece of work.
It isn’t quite right.
You know explaining it again will take longer than fixing it yourself, so you do it.
Next time, you step in a little earlier.
Then a little earlier again.
Months later, something has changed.
Your team waits.
Nobody makes the decision until you’ve seen it.
Questions arrive every few minutes.
Your diary fills with conversations that should never have needed to happen.
“The manager who always has the answers creates a team that keeps asking for them.”
You finish your own work after everyone else has gone home.
You tell yourself it’s just part of management.
But is it?
Nobody taught you this
Most managers weren’t taught how to lead people.
They were promoted because they were good at the work.
Leading a team is a different skill.
If nobody ever showed you another way, it’s hardly surprising that everything now comes back to you.
Here’s the important part.
This isn’t about working harder.
It isn’t about becoming stricter.
And it isn’t about finding better people.
It’s about changing the conversations that happen before every decision lands on your desk.
Because when people learn to think instead of wait, something changes.
Not overnight.
But steadily.
The pattern most managers miss
The questions become different.
The ownership becomes different.
Eventually, the evenings become different too.
We’ll talk more about that over the coming days.
For now, simply notice the pattern.
The team that waits.
It doesn’t have to stay this way
The decisions that always come back to you.
The work that follows you home.
It doesn’t have to stay that way.
Could this be your team?
If every decision comes back to you…
perhaps it’s time to look at leadership differently.
See if Manager as Coach is right for you →
