Their team can’t stand them. Their peers are exhausted by them. Their family barely sees them.
And their boss thinks they’re great.
Ten years advising, assessing, and coaching leaders, and I keep meeting some version of this person. Smart. Driven. Determined to make sure nothing goes wrong. Gripping so tightly that, slowly, things start to unravel.
The problem is that the gripping gets rewarded.
Working nights and weekends to cover every contingency looks like caring. The boss gets someone they can rely on to worry so they don’t have to. The team gets someone who can’t let go. Everyone comes to depend on a pattern that’s wearing them down.
They’re strung tighter than Odysseus’ bow.
That’s what stayed with me after Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Odysseus has wit, craftiness, strength. The skills were never the problem. It’s the ego behind them. The need to prove himself, even when other people bear the cost.
Twelve ships left Troy. He returns to Ithaca alone.
And the image I keep coming back to is him on the raft: lying down, closing his eyes, allowing himself to be carried.
I read that moment as surrender.
We hear surrender and think giving up. But in leadership, it can mean something much harder: accepting that you can’t control every outcome, and trusting yourself and your team to handle what comes.
Letting someone make a consequential decision without stepping in. Admitting you don’t know. Asking for help before you’re desperate.
It’s harder than gripping, especially when gripping is what got you promoted.
There’s often a simpler way through. But it’s hard to find when every decision runs through you and every solution depends on you working harder.
You need other people. You have limits. You can’t save the day every day.
Accepting that—and changing how you lead because of it—is humility.
AI makes that willingness to admit uncertainty even more necessary. We’re making consequential decisions without knowing exactly how this will play out. Leaders need to be able to say “I don’t know” and still help people move forward.
Yet humility rarely sits among the top priorities in the leadership assessments I’ve seen.
What would change if it were in the top five?
I’ve built my coaching and consulting practice around that question. There are five characteristics I believe leaders need to help our communities thrive through this era. Humility is the first.
Where have you seen a leader’s need for control get rewarded? Comment or message me—I’d like to hear what you’re seeing.