When Leadership Responsibility Gets in the Way of Your Plans
It was a busy Friday at the bank, and I was watching the clock. I was supposed to leave after work for a weeklong vacation, and several people were already waiting at my house with the car loaded. They had left their own jobs early so we could get on the road, miss some of the traffic, and start the long drive. We planned to take turns driving through the night to get to our destination. I was ready to go. Then the computer system went down. Of course it did.
We trained for outages, and my team knew what to do. But on a busy Friday, a computer outage created work quickly. Accounts had to be opened by hand. Transaction receipts had to be handwritten. Customers still needed to be taken care of. Everything we were doing manually would eventually have to be entered into the system when it came back online.
Every 30 seconds, I glanced at the clock and thought about the people sitting at my house waiting for me. Every part of me wanted to leave. My leadership responsibility told me I needed to stay.
Leadership Responsibility Doesn't Mean Your Team Can't Handle It
I want to make an important distinction because I don't believe good leadership means sacrificing your personal life every time something goes wrong at work. In fact, we work with leaders who struggle to leave because they believe their department can't function without them. Sometimes refusing to step away isn't a sign of dedication. It's a sign that you haven't learned to trust the people you've developed.
That wasn't what was happening that Friday. I knew my team could handle the outage. They were capable, they knew the procedures, and they didn't need me hovering over them to make sure the work got done. But leaving would have made their load heavier.
I was already there. I was already working. If I walked out because my vacation was supposed to begin, there would be one fewer person dealing with customers, opening accounts, handling transactions, and working with the back office to get things running again. The manual work piling up would still have to be completed, and my team would likely be the ones staying after hours to finish it. They could handle it. I just didn't believe they should have to handle all of it without me while things were still chaotic.
Sometimes Leadership Responsibility Is Inconvenient
There wasn't anything heroic about staying at the bank for another three hours. I wasn't saving the organization, and my team wasn't helpless without me. It was simply one of those days when being the leader interfered with what I wanted to do.
I think we sometimes make leadership moments bigger and more dramatic than they really are. Leadership isn't always a difficult conversation, a disciplinary decision, or a major crisis. A lot of leadership happens during very ordinary workdays when something doesn't go according to plan and you have to figure out what the situation needs from you. That Friday, what I wanted and what I believed my team needed from me were two different things.
So I stayed and worked alongside them. I dealt with customers. I opened accounts. I worked with the back office. My team felt terrible that I was delaying my vacation, but they also knew I wasn't going to walk out the door while everything was still out of control.
That mattered to me because leadership is built through those everyday moments. If I want people to believe we're a team, my actions have to support that when being part of the team becomes inconvenient.
Leadership Responsibility Has Boundaries Too
Eventually, the computers came back up. Things settled down. My team was in a good place to begin getting caught up. And I left.
I didn't stay until every piece of work created by the outage was finished. I didn't cancel my vacation because only I could possibly save the day. Once things were under control, I trusted my team to handle the rest. I went home, got in the loaded car with the very patient people who had been waiting for me, and started my vacation. I also turned my phone off.
That boundary is just as important to me as the decision to stay. Leadership responsibility doesn't mean work always wins. It doesn't mean you have to rescue your team from every problem or prove your commitment by being the last person out the door every night.
Sometimes your team needs you to step in. Sometimes they need you to step back and trust them. Part of leadership is learning to recognize the difference.
Leadership Responsibility Shows Up on Ordinary Days
When I think about the weight of leadership, I don't only think about the biggest decisions I've had to make. Sometimes I think about a Friday afternoon when the computers went down at exactly the wrong time.
Taking the leadership title out of the equation, I wouldn't have stayed. I wanted to leave. People were waiting for me. I had every reason to want to walk out that door. But I was the leader, and in that moment I believed my responsibility was to stay beside my team until the situation was under control.
Leadership development happens in moments like that. We learn when to step in, when to step back, when to trust, when to support, and sometimes when to put our own plans on hold for a few hours because that's what the situation calls for.
Not every day of leadership is a defining moment. Most days, you simply show up, keep the wheels moving, help your people do good work, and deal with whatever the day hands you.
And every once in a while, the day hands you a computer outage right before vacation.
If you're working through the everyday realities of leading people, Let's Talk Leadership: Practical Mentorship for Leading People Well was written for exactly that kind of leadership—the practical, sometimes messy work that happens between the big moments.
Comments