The Hardest Shift Every Leader Has to Make
Why the skills that made you successful are now holding you back
Here's the uncomfortable truth: The skills that got you promoted will cap your effectiveness as a leader.
The harder you work on your own tasks, the more you neglect your actual job—developing other leaders who can multiply your impact.
Most leaders arrive at their positions because they were exceptionally good at something. They closed more deals, wrote better code, managed better projects, or simply outworked everyone around them. Their individual contribution was so valuable that someone decided to put them in charge of a team.
And that's where the trouble begins.
The Producer Trap
The most difficult part of becoming a leader is this: you're now responsible for getting work done through others rather than doing it yourself. The very activities that brought recognition and success must now be delegated to people who may not do them as well as you would.
For many leaders, this feels like professional suicide. So they don't let go.
Instead, they continue doing their old job while adding leadership responsibilities on top. They work longer hours, feel increasingly overwhelmed, and wonder why their team isn't performing. Meanwhile, their team members feel micromanaged, underutilized, and underdeveloped.
I've seen leaders spending 95% of their time on their own work, leaving almost nothing for actually leading their people. The result? High turnover, disengaged teams, and burned-out leaders who can't figure out what went wrong.
The Mindset Shift
There's a subtle but crucial difference between these two approaches:
Producer mindset: "I need this project done. Who can do it?"
Developer mindset: "I need this project done. Who can do it, and how can they grow through the process?"
This isn't about sacrificing results for development. It's about accomplishing results in a way that builds capability for the future.
Here's what this shift looks like in practice:
From telling to asking. When someone brings you a problem, resist solving it immediately. Ask: "What have you already tried?"
From fixing to developing. Use problems as opportunities to build capacity, not just eliminate symptoms.
From control to empowerment. Transfer responsibility progressively. Let people learn through both successes and failures.
"But I'm Constantly Putting Out Fires"
I hear this objection all the time. Team members butting heads, unexpected problems, urgent deadlines—how are you supposed to develop people when you can barely keep up with today's crises?
Here's the thing: addressing issues doesn't mean abandoning strategic leadership. The key is solving problems in a way that builds capacity.
Producers see problems and think, "I need to fix this." Developmental leaders see problems and think, "How can I help someone else learn to fix this—and grow in the process?"
Yes, two team members might be in conflict. That's a leadership issue. But it's also a development opportunity—for them to learn conflict resolution, and for an emerging leader on your team to facilitate the conversation.
The goal isn't to ignore problems. It's to stop being the only one who can solve them.
The Investment That Pays Exponentially
Development costs in the short term. Teaching someone to fold laundry takes longer than doing it yourself. But that small investment early pays off exponentially later.
One company required upper managers to dedicate 40% of their time to developing younger leaders. That meant 40% of their usual responsibilities had to be delegated elsewhere.
The result? Instead of a net loss, they produced a net gain through multiplication of key leaders. The company became known as a "leader factory"—and their bottom line thrived.
The Choice in Front of You
Every leader faces this choice. You can continue doing what made you successful as an individual contributor—and eventually plateau or burn out. Or you can make the difficult shift to leading with a developmental mindset.
Your greatest contribution as a leader won't be the deals you closed, the projects you delivered, or the problems you solved. It will be the leaders you developed who go on to do those things long after you've moved on.
The producer mindset feels safe because it's familiar. But comfort isn't the goal of leadership. Impact is.
And impact comes through multiplication.
Your leadership matters more than you know. Let's make it count.
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Want to go deeper? Check out the LDC Blueprint Toolkit for practical tools to make this shift in your own leadership.