John had fallen asleep answering emails again.
Not because he wanted to, but because that’s what you do when you’re the one everything runs through. When you wake up mentally scanning: What’s waiting on me? What’s broken? Who needs a decision?
He was the President of Lunar Aerospace. The business had grown fast. Orders were pouring in, customers demanding more, and the pace was relentless. From the outside, everything looked impressive.
But underneath it all sat a truth he never quite said out loud:
If John stopped moving, the business slowed with him.
And that truth was about to cost him the biggest deal in the company’s history.
That morning mattered more than most. A tier-one supplier was visiting. This was going to be the biggest sales pitch in the company’s history. A deal that could permanently change the trajectory of the company.
So John did what John always did. He took control.
He chose the menu. Built the pitch deck. Planned the tour. Printed the materials. Practiced the story. He coached his two senior people on what to say and when to say it. Not because they weren’t capable, but because the stakes were high and he didn’t trust the moment to chance.
The day went exactly as planned.
The visitors smiled. Asked thoughtful questions. Complimented the operation. When John walked them out to their Uber, he felt confident. Everything had gone right.
Two days later, the email arrived.
They were out. Deselected from the process.
John stared at the screen longer than he should have. Shock gave way to anger.
That makes no sense.
Against his better judgment, he picked up the phone. He wanted feedback, real feedback. Something he could fix. Something that made the loss tolerable.
His counterpart didn’t hesitate.
“John, you have an impressive business. But it’s built entirely on you.”
The words landed harder than he expected.
Everything they saw pointed to it. John was the center of the wheel. His team spoke only when invited. Decisions flowed through him. The operation worked, but only because he was everywhere.
“This project is huge for you,” the man said. “It’s also huge for us. We can’t afford a strategic supplier who has such an obvious, single point of failure.”
That failure was John.
The Awakening Nobody Wants
He hung up stunned, then angry. Defensive.
Fine. We don’t need them anyway.
He closed the door on it and moved on.
But something had shifted.
Over the next few weeks, small things began to stand out. Things that had always been there but had never registered.
Why was he approving emails before they went out?
Why were people asking him what to order for lunch?
Why did meetings stall until he arrived?
Why was he still building agendas, taking notes, and summarizing next steps?
One afternoon, a manager hesitated in his doorway and said, half-joking, “I didn’t want to move without checking with you first.”
It wasn’t a joke.
John began to see a pattern. And once he saw it, he couldn’t unsee it.
The business didn’t just depend on him. It waited for him. He had become the bottleneck in a company that was supposed to be growing.
When Being the Go-To Person Becomes the Problem
Here’s what most leaders don’t realize until it costs them something significant: The very capability that made you successful becomes the thing holding your business back.
You’ve heard the phrases. You’ve probably said them:
“If I want it done right, I need to do it myself.”
“I don’t have time to let others figure it out; it needs to be done now.”
“It’s easier and quicker to do it myself.”
“No one does it like I do.”
This is what I call the Muscle Model. It’s exactly what it sounds like: lots of effort. Leaders shoulder the load, work long hours, and take personal ownership for getting the results they desire.
At first, the Muscle Model works beautifully. It’s often exactly the approach needed during a startup or turnaround situation. You put the company on your shoulders and move it forward through sheer force of will.
The problem? It isn’t scalable. And it sure as hell isn’t sustainable.
The person shouldering the load runs out of hours in the day. They literally can’t do all that needs to be done. And here’s where it gets dangerous: instead of changing the operating system, most leaders just add more people like them.
If one muscler worked, surely two or three more will solve the problem, right?
Welcome to the Superhero Model.
Just as people become dependent on superheroes in movies, companies become dependent on them in real life. We expect them to save the day because we don’t have the systems, processes, or talent to save ourselves. Instead, we shoot the “bat signal” into the night sky and wait for the dynamic duo to show up and fix it.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: I work with businesses generating over $2B in annual revenue that still have superheroes flying through the halls saving the day. The dynamics are the same regardless of company size; the city they patrol is simply bigger.
The Fork in the Road Nobody Talks About
This is where many leaders quietly reach the end of the line. What worked before isn’t going to keep working if they want to grow.
Early Growth rewards hustle. Firefighting works. Improvisation works. The leader-as-hero works. It’s MacGyver and Rambo getting it done through grit, instinct, and sheer will.
And it can feel like control. Until the market tells you something you don’t want to hear.
Mature Growth demands something different: professional management, clear roles, real decision rights, systems that hold the standard without the leader at the center of everything.
Here’s the fork-in-the-road most control-oriented executives hate:
At some point in your business’s lifecycle, in order to gain control, you must let go of control.
This is a paradox that must be faced. Not recklessly, but deliberately.
The same leader who created momentum now has to build an organization that can move without them touching every decision. Without them being the final approval on every email. Without them being in every meeting to unstick progress.
The most dangerous executive at this stage isn’t the lazy one. It’s the capable one who believes their capability entitles them to carry everything.
The Questions That Matter Now
Here’s what John eventually had to face. And here’s what you need to ask yourself:
Are you still muscling results, or are you facilitating movement?
If you disappeared for 30 days, would the business keep moving or would it stall because no one feels allowed (or knows how) to steer?
Look at your last week honestly. Count the moments where:
- Someone asked you to make a decision they’re perfectly capable of making
- A meeting couldn’t start without you
- You personally fixed something because it was “faster” than teaching someone else
- Your team waited for you to approve, validate, or bless something trivial
- You stayed up late handling work that should have been distributed
Now ask yourself: What would a potential partner or customer think if they spent a day observing how your business actually runs?
Would they see a company? Or would they see you with a very expensive support staff?
Here’s the assessment John’s potential partner made in real-time: Too much risk. Too dependent on one person. Not scalable. Not sustainable. Not strategic.
And they were right.
What Most Leaders Miss Until It’s Too Late
By the time the market gives you feedback this blunt, you’ve been living this pattern for years.
You’ve been training your organization to wait. To defer. To ask permission instead of taking ownership. To stay small instead of stepping up.
Not maliciously. Not intentionally. But systematically.
Every time you stepped in to “help,” you reinforced the pattern. Every time you fixed something faster than teaching someone else, you chose short-term efficiency over long-term capability. Every time you held onto a decision “because the stakes were high,” you signaled that your team isn’t trusted to handle what matters.
The business adapted. It learned. And now it runs exactly as you’ve trained it to run.
Through you.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Capability
Here’s what makes this particularly difficult for high-performing leaders: You’re good at what you do. You can step in and solve problems. You can see three moves ahead. You can execute faster than anyone else on your team.
That capability is real. And it’s valuable.
It’s also becoming the ceiling on your growth.
Because every problem you solve is a problem someone else didn’t have to solve. Every decision you make is a decision someone else didn’t have to own. Every fire you put out is a fire someone else didn’t have to learn to prevent.
Your capability, deployed this way, creates organizational dependency.
And organizational dependency creates the very fragility John’s potential partner saw: A business that works only when you’re working it.
That’s not a company. That’s an expensive consulting gig with a payroll.
Moving from Hero to Architect
The shift isn’t easy. But it’s necessary.
You have to move from muscling results to facilitating movement. From being the person with all the answers to being the person who builds a system that generates answers. From stepping in heroically to stepping back strategically.
This isn’t about working less. It’s about working differently.
It’s about recognizing that professional management (real, systematic, scalable professional management) isn’t bureaucracy. It’s liberation.
Liberation for you. Liberation for your team. Liberation for your business to grow beyond what one person can carry.
But it requires something most capable leaders resist: Deliberately letting go of control in order to actually gain it.
John’s wake-up call came from a lost deal and a phone call he wishes he hadn’t made. The feedback stung because it was true.
Where will yours come from?
Your Assignment
Don’t wait for a potential partner to tell you what you already know.
Run your own diagnostic:
The Single Point of Failure Assessment
- List the decisions you made yesterday that someone else on your team is capable of making.
- Identify the meetings that stalled or didn’t start because you weren’t there.
- Count how many times in the last week someone asked for your approval on something trivial.
- Ask yourself: If I was unavailable for 30 days, which critical functions would stop entirely?
- Be honest: Would a strategic partner looking at my business see a scalable operation or an indispensable founder?
If the answers make you uncomfortable, good. Discomfort is data.
The question isn’t whether you’re capable of carrying everything. You are.
The question is whether you’re willing to build something bigger than what you can carry alone.
Because the market won’t wait for you to figure it out. Your competitors won’t slow down to give you space. And the next opportunity, the one that could change your trajectory, might be evaluating you right now.
What Comes Next
If you recognize yourself in John’s story – if you’re the person everything runs through, if your team waits for you rather than moving with you – here’s what you need to understand:
You’re not the problem. Your operating system is.
The leadership approach that got you here won’t take you there. And no amount of effort, hustle, or capability will change that fundamental truth.
Next week, I’ll show you exactly what it means to evolve from entrepreneur to executive. Why this transition breaks more capable leaders than any other challenge in the growth journey. And what systematic leadership evolution actually looks like in practice.
Because insight without action keeps you stuck. And staying stuck eventually gets expensive.
Ask John.
Want to diagnose where you really are? Want to know exactly what leadership style your current phase demands? Get your copy of The Locator Report. It shows you precisely where your business is on the growth curve and what’s required to navigate what comes next. Click here to get The Locator Report.
Ready to go deeper? The full framework for navigating growth transitions is in my book Talent-Driven Growth. It’s the systematic approach to building businesses that scale beyond what one person can carry. Click here to get your copy of Talent-Driven Growth.
