Greg Stevenson argues that the traits that made you successful as an individual—being the sharpest problem solver, the go-to person—become liabilities when you lead. The shift isn't doing more work. It's relinquishing the need to be needed for answers so your team can function without you at the center.
There's a moment every leader has to cross, and most cross it too late. It's the day you stop being the one with the answers and become the one who builds a room full of people who have them. Everything that made you successful on the way up— being the sharpest, solving it fastest, being the one to turn to— quietly becomes the thing holding your team back. Because if you're still the smartest person in every room, you've built something that can't function without you standing in the middle of it. The shift isn't doing more. It's letting go of being needed for the answer.
