I was scrolling Instagram yesterday when I ran into one of those “quotable quotes.” The beige background kind people screenshot and pass around like wisdom from on high.
Usually I keep scrolling, but this one struck a bit of a nerve…
“Remember not to work harder than the person you’re helping.”
It’s a simple sentence. Almost obvious.
But it explains a lot of situations I’ve watched over the years.
Managers checking the project tracker again before logging off, just to make sure nothing quietly slipped.
Someone reopening a report at night because correcting it will be faster than walking someone through the edits.
One spouse always being the one who remembers the groceries, the appointments, and which night the trash goes out.
From the outside it just looks like responsibility. Someone making sure things don’t fall apart. But if you watch those situations long enough, something starts to shift.
The person with responsibility in the situation isn’t carrying the hardest part of it.
Someone else is.
And once that pattern takes hold, it’s surprisingly durable. The capable person keeps stepping in, and the other person steps back.
Not because anyone planned it that way. Just because the system slowly rearranged itself around the person willing to carry the load.
Over time, the situation only works because that person keeps pushing it forward.
Which is why that quote stuck with me. It rings an alarm as a diagnostic tool.
If the person trying to help is consistently doing more of the work than the person who actually owns the outcome, something in the arrangement has drifted.
So, I’m curious: How do you know when a leader is supporting the work versus quietly doing it for everyone else?
A small ask, if this resonated.
The leaders who read this newsletter tend to know other leaders who would read it too. The people quietly doing the work. The ones who think carefully before they speak. The ones who notice what the room missed.
If someone like that came to mind while you were reading, send this their way.
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