A manager told me recently, “I don’t understand why everything comes to me.”
Every decision, every approval, every little judgment call. Nothing seemed to get done unless he was involved. He was frustrated, and honestly, a little confused.
From his perspective, he was being helpful. He was staying close to the work. He was making sure things were done right. So why did it feel like the team couldn’t operate without him?
What he couldn’t see yet was this: he was teaching his team to depend on him.
Every team is constantly being trained. Perhaps not through formal processes or documentation, but through what the leader does in the moment.
When you step in and take over a problem, the team learns that ownership sits with you.
When you require approval on every decision, the team learns that progress requires permission.
When you answer every question right away, the team learns that thinking is optional.
None of this is intentional. In fact, it usually comes from a good place. You want to help. You want to move quickly. You want to avoid mistakes. But over time, those small moments add up, and the team adapts accordingly.
Most managers only notice this pattern once it becomes painful. Work starts to slow down. Decisions back up. The manager feels stretched thin, and the team appears hesitant or disengaged.
At that point, it’s easy to assume there’s a capability issue. But more often than not, it’s a conditioning issue. The team is behaving exactly how the system has trained them to behave.
This is where leadership gets uncomfortable. Because it’s all on you. The solution isn’t to push the team harder. It’s to change what you are reinforcing.
That means noticing the moments where you instinctively step in, and choosing a different response.
It means letting someone else wrestle with the problem a little longer before you engage.
It means asking for their thinking instead of immediately providing your answer.
It means allowing decisions to happen without routing everything through you.
None of this feels efficient at first. In fact, it often feels slower. But what you are really doing is shifting what the team learns, from “the manager will handle it” to “we are expected to think, decide, and act.”
That shift doesn’t happen through a single conversation. It happens through repetition. Through dozens of small moments where your behavior teaches the team what ownership actually looks like.
If you feel like everything is coming to you right now, it’s worth asking a simple question: what is my team learning from how I show up each day?
Because whether you intend to or not, you are training them.
Best,
Jeff
P.S. If you’re a tech industry manager taking on a new team right now and you want to avoid the mistakes that make this transition more stressful than it needs to be, go grab my free email course: The 5 Mistakes Tech Managers Make When Taking on New Teams.
It’s free, it’s practical, and it’s going to help point you and your team in the right direction.
