What if you, your habits, your decision-making patterns, your well-intentioned drive are now the very thing holding back your organisation?

📍The Hidden Bottleneck in Senior Leadership

Many senior leaders believe the key to drive performance is to stay closely involved. Yet, research shows that as organisations scale, the more a single leader holds the reins, the more growth stalls.

According to a 2023 McKinsey study, companies that outperform their peers are 3x more likely to delegate decision-making authority closer to the front line. Why? Because speed, adaptability, and empowerment are strategic assets – not just cultural ideals.

And yet, letting go is hard. Our brains are wired to crave control. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for planning and decision-making, rewards predictability. But here’s the paradox: true strategic leadership often requires you to tolerate ambiguity and trust other – two things your brain is instinctively wired to resist.

⚠️ 5 Signs You Might Be the Bottleneck

1. Too Many Decisions Run Through You – You’re constantly approving, reviewing, or revisiting choices your team could own.
2. You’re the Default Problem Solver – Instead of asking, “What do you think?”, your team looks to you for answers.
3. Growth Has Plateaued – The business or your team’s development has stalled – even though you’re working harder than ever.
4. You Feel Stretched Too Thin – Delegation feels risky, so you’re taking on too much and the quality of your strategic focus is suffering.
5. You’re the Source of the Delay – Projects wait for your sign-off. Emails pile up because decisions depend on your input.

🔍 What the Research Says

Daniel Goleman, in his work on Emotional Intelligence, points out that high-impact leaders excel at self-awareness and self-regulation. They know when to step in and when to get out of the way.

In organisational theory, Heifetz’s Adaptive Leadership model reminds us that not all challenges are technical (solved by expertise); many are adaptive (solved by others learning and growing). If you’re too quick to fix, you deny others the chance to lead.

A 2022 study in the Harvard Business Review found that companies with leaders who shifted from “hero” to “host” (facilitators rather than fixers) saw a 20–25% improvement in team performance over 18 months.

🧠 Leading Yourself First

Unblocking growth starts with inner leadership:

• Notice your patterns: Do you intervene to feel in control or to create value?
• Build psychological safety: Can your team challenge you, or are they trying to please you?
• Define your new value: As a senior leader, your value isn’t in decisions, it’s in creating the conditions for great decisions.

🔄 Your Turn: Reflect & Act

• What decisions are you currently making that someone else could own?
• What would happen if you stepped back 20% more?
• Who on your team is ready to grow, but needs the space to do so?

Sometimes, the next level of leadership is not about doing more, but doing differently.

If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear your perspective. Have you ever realised you were the bottleneck? What helped you shift?