The firefighting leader: stepping out of the role of putting out every fire
Being indispensable is reassuring. But a leader who puts out every fire no longer has time to see the next ones coming. How to change role, step by step.
It is 6 pm. You have settled a client dispute, unblocked a delivery and answered twenty questions from the team. A useful day, on the face of it. Yet nothing you had planned that morning has moved forward.
This is the daily life of the firefighting leader. Competent, responsive, available. And that is precisely what traps them.
The mechanism is simple. Each time you solve a problem in place of the team, you teach them that problems will come back to you. Emergencies multiply, your time shrinks, and the important topics wait.
Leaving this role cannot be decreed. It is built, in four steps.
Observe. For one week, note every request: who, on what topic, and whether it could have been handled without you. The result is often revealing.
Sort. Among these requests, separate what truly belongs to you, what can be delegated with an instruction, and what simply needs a written rule.
Hand over. For each delegated topic, state the expected result, the room for decision and the time of the follow-up. Then stick to it, even if the first attempt does not go exactly as you would have done it.
Protect. Block uninterrupted time in your diary for the important topics. These are appointments with your role as a leader.
The hardest change is not organisational. It is internal: accepting no longer to be the one who saves the day, in order to become the one who enables others to handle it.
This is the heart of CONTRESENS Leadership, a twelve-week group programme for executives, managers and entrepreneurs. Stance, delegation, priorities and decision-making are worked on in a small group, among peers, in a confidential setting.