Are your efforts to be helpful actually helpful? And when you step in, is it because your team needs your help or because you need to feel needed? If you’ve ever used the word helpful to describe yourself, this episode is for you.
Because in this raw coaching session, Jeanette—a former teacher turned HR director—works with her Arbinger coach, Mitch Warner, to confront how her well-intended desire to support her principals is preventing them from owning their work. What starts as a conversation about time management becomes a deeper reckoning with control, avoidance, and the leadership cost of doing for others what you should be developing them to do on their own.
Ideas we explore:
01:15 — It’s not a time problem...it’s a “doing too much” problem.
03:40 — The most “helpful” leaders often create the biggest bottlenecks.
08:50 — Not giving tough feedback protects comfort but prevents growth.
13:20 — Stepping in communicates a lack of trust in your team.
17:40 — Fixing everything turns you into the only one who can fix anything.
26:00 — The need to feel helpful is quietly undermining your leadership.
Have a leadership challenge or question you’d like us to explore on the show? Submit it here!
Get the insights 76,000 leaders rely on—delivered monthly to your inbox.