Why do I feel like I have to carry everyone myself?
You say you carry every soldier and every choice. Listen to that sentence. It sounds like devotion. It is closer to vanity. No commander carries an army. An army carries itself — through people you trained, trusted, and then stepped back from. The real problem is not that you have too much to carry. It is that you have decided no one else is fit to carry it. That is not strength. That is doubt wearing the costume of responsibility. And your people feel it. When you hold everything, you tell them — without words — that you don't believe in them. You did not build a team so you could do its work alone. You built it so the work would not depend on one person's back. Today, choose one load you are holding that belongs to someone else. Give it to them. Watch what happens when you stop proving you can carry it and start proving they can.
You don't have to carry everyone. Carrying everyone is not command — it is a refusal to let others carry anything. Choose one thing you hold today, and hand it to someone able to hold it. That is the job. The weight proves nothing except that you have not yet trusted your people.
What changes unlock by starting
- You spend less time managing details and more time managing direction.
- Your team starts bringing you solutions, not just problems.
- You notice which parts of the load were never yours to carry.
- Decisions get made without you in the room — and hold up.