LibraryPatternsLeadershipI avoid giving my people stretching assignments becau…
Problem
Toward Craftsmanship

I avoid giving my people stretching assignments because if they fail, it reflects on me and I would have to manage the fallout. So I keep them safe and small, and I am quietly capping the growth of the very people I am meant to develop.

Part of the pattern: Leadership
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You might also say it as
  • “I avoid stretching my people in case they fail”
  • “I keep my team safe and small”
  • “I am capping my people growth to avoid fallout”
How Aurelius might see it
One way to read this — take what fits, leave what doesn’t.
You are not protecting your people — you are protecting yourself. The stretching assignments feel risky, but the real risk you are managing is to your own reputation, not their growth. You have quietly made your comfort the ceiling of their careers.
The short answer
You are keeping your team small because failure would land on you. That is self-protection dressed up as care. The fix is to separate your reputation from their growth — then give one person a real challenge this week, with your visible backing behind them.
You are managing your own fear of looking bad, and your team is paying the cost. Research on talent retention is clear on this: people leave when they stop growing. Stretch assignments are one of the main ways good people decide to stay. When you take those away, you do not keep them safe — you just give them a reason to find a manager who will back them. Marcus Aurelius wrote about keeping your own purpose free from compulsion — acting from what is right, not from what feels safe. Right now, a quiet compulsion is running the show: the fear that their failure becomes your failure. That fear is real, but it is not the same thing as leadership. A leader's job is not to eliminate the risk of failure. It is to make the attempt worth taking. This week, pick one person on your team who is ready for more. Give them one assignment that is a real stretch — not impossible, but genuinely hard. Tell them openly that you know it is a stretch, that you expect them to struggle some, and that you are in their corner when it gets hard. Put your name behind their attempt, not just their outcome. That is what changes the dynamic.
The path forward
  1. 1Name the growth you're capping
  2. 2Give one stretch assignment
  3. 3Support them through the risk
One thing to try this week
Give one person a stretch assignment this week and support them through it. Developing people means risking their failure, which is how they grow.
Related problems
As a supervisor I'm supposed to hold my team through secondary trauma while carrying my own, and there's no one holding me.I absorb difficult things from above — pressure, criticism, ambiguity — and deliver a buffered version to my team. The team is protected and underprepared for the reality of the environment they are working in.I am excellent at managing my relationship with senior leadership. I am much worse at the actual management of my team. I have been rewarded for the wrong skill.I avoid committing to a clear vision or direction because, once stated, it could turn out wrong. So I keep things open and reactive, and my team feels the absence — they are working hard with no sense of where any of it is going.I avoid making decisions unilaterally by pulling everyone in and waiting for consensus that never comes.I bear the solitude of command with equanimity, at peace being the one the decision finally rests on.
Sources
  1. 1. Retaining good people through a focus on talent and purpose — Clive Wilson, Human Resource Management International Digest (2012)
  2. 2. The War for Talent — Elizabeth G. Chambers; Mark Foulon; Helen Handfield‐Jones (2001)
  3. 3. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.13 — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (180)

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