A leader's most critical job is finding and training their own replacement. By deliberately reducing how much only you can do, through delegation and training, you guarantee the work continues without you. Think of it like a monarch's duty to produce an heir.
Your most important job is to replace yourself, or more importantly, find your successor. I think this is counterintuitive for a lot of folks. They think that like what they should be doing with a consulting engagement is getting that rollover to do more with the client. And you should be doing more, but not the same job, right? It should be whatever the next engagement is. If you are, you know, a founder of a company, you want to make yourself no longer critical to the various jobs you're holding, probably up to and including the the top job in leadership, because the more you do that, the more successful you are. It's worth remembering that like the first responsibility of even the kings of old was to produce an heir. Someone who's going to be leadership for the future, someone who could point the way to this is what's next. So certainly, do the things you need to do to get through today, but the way that you win tomorrow is by replacing yourself. And it doesn't matter what kind of job you have, be asking that question. Replacing yourself with people, with machines, but make sure tomorrow is taken care of.
