Part of Find the Balance, a series on the tensions every leader lives with: why we lean one way, what drives the lean, and one small move.

There’s a pattern most of us have watched play out. A capable, conscientious person checks every decision with their manager before acting. They’re careful, respectful and rarely wrong. Then a bigger role comes up and they’re passed over as “not quite ready”, and they’re genuinely puzzled, because nothing they did was a mistake. What they hadn’t noticed is that every decision they handed upwards was also a small piece of evidence about them, and someone else was collecting it.

The paradox

Rely on others, and rely on yourself. Nobody knows everything, and good leaders know when someone else’s judgement is better than their own and follow it well. Asking for help, drawing on expertise and letting the better-placed person lead are strengths, not concessions. But relying on others has a way of handing them more than you meant to. The more you rely on others, the more they decide for you, including what they decide about you.

Too little, too much

On one side is Trusting: leaning on other people’s knowledge, accepting help and letting others carry part of the load. Done too little, it becomes going it alone. You decide alone, fix things alone and tell yourself it’s quicker if you just do it yourself. Done too much, Trusting becomes dependence. You bring a question when you could bring a recommendation, and you wait for permission nobody said you needed.

On the other side is Striving: backing your own judgement, owning the outcome and pushing for the result. Done too little, it leaves you waiting for others to set your direction. Done too much, it tips into the same going it alone, where everything rests on you and nobody else’s expertise gets a look in. Each side, overdone, ends up looking like the other side missing.

What each side invites

Dependence invites others to take charge. The more you look for direction, the more direction you get, and the less room you’re given to provide your own. People aren’t being controlling; they’re responding sensibly to what you keep bringing them. Going it alone invites others to leave you to it. People stop offering help to someone who never takes it, and they stop sharing what they know with someone who doesn’t seem to want it. What starts as independence can end as isolation, and what starts as respect for others can end as being managed by them.

Within: why you lean

Two beliefs tend to sit underneath this one. The first is that others know better: their experience, their seniority or their confidence must make their judgement more reliable than yours. The second is that asking is weakness, and that a capable person shouldn’t need help. Both are first stories about what will happen if you move. If I make the call myself, I’ll get it wrong and be found out. If I ask for help, I’ll be seen as not up to it. Neither story usually gets tested, because the lean keeps you from ever finding out what would have happened.

Around: what the space rewards

The space matters a great deal here, because it is largely about Agency, and Agency is often decided by the system rather than the person. In a permission culture, with layers of sign-off and a habit of reversing decisions made lower down, checking first is a rational response. People learn that acting on their own judgement is risky, so they stop doing it, and the organisation then concludes that they lack initiative. Even freedom can be choreographed: a team can be told it’s empowered while every real decision still travels upwards. Before you decide you’re too dependent, it’s worth asking how much room the system genuinely gives you, and how much of your lean is a reasonable reading of it.

They move

The leaders who handle this well know whose judgement to trust on what. They ask for advice, then make the decision themselves. When someone else is clearly better placed to lead, they let them, and follow fully. Research by Yan Zhang and colleagues found that supervisors who combined seemingly opposite behaviours, such as keeping control of decisions while also allowing autonomy, had staff who were more proficient, adaptive and proactive. The skill isn’t choosing between relying on others and relying on yourself. It’s knowing when, on what and how much.

The move

Try a little more of the opposite, in one small step. If you lean towards relying on others, take the next decision you would normally check upwards and bring it as a plan rather than a question: “I’m planning to do this by Thursday unless you can see a reason not to.” Notice how often the answer is simply “go ahead”. If you lean towards going it alone, pick one piece of live work this week and ask one person for their view before you’ve made up your mind, then use at least part of what they tell you.

And a question to sit with. What are you checking with someone else that you could decide yourself, and what are you carrying alone that someone else could help with? If you asked your manager whether you lean on others too much or too little, what would they say?

Find the Balance is one of Square Peg’s three practices, alongside Change the Story and Shape the Conditions.

References

• Zhang, Y., Waldman, D. A., Han, Y.-L., & Li, X.-B. (2015). Paradoxical leader behaviors in people management: Antecedents and consequences. Academy of Management Journal, 58(2), 538–566. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2012.0995