Is Your Leadership Building Capability or Dependence?

What if the leadership habit you’re most proud of being helpful is the exact thing that’s making your team weaker? We dig into the blurry line between supportive leadership and accidental control, and why “rescuing” can feel compassionate while quietly creating dependence. If you’ve ever stepped in fast to prevent struggle, solved a problem because you knew the answer, or felt oddly needed when people can’t move without you, this conversation is for you.

We walk through practical warning signs that show up in everyday management: stepping in before someone has time to learn, giving answers instead of asking strong coaching questions, and taking ownership of problems that belong to your people. We also unpack how leaders amplify issues through venting, rescue teams with “I’ll handle it,” or create drama through triangulation by talking to someone else instead of coaching the employee to have the conversation.

Then we get real about control disguised as “best practice,” including delegation that hands off the task but not the decision-making. Empowerment means autonomy, and autonomy fuels intrinsic motivation, engagement, and growth. You’ll leave with a simple gut-check question to use in the moment: is my support increasing capability, or increasing dependence?

If this helped you rethink your management style, subscribe for more intentional leadership tools, share the episode with a leader who needs it, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show.

Ambitious leaders know that real leadership goes far beyond titles—it’s about developing the clarity and mindset to guide others with confidence. In this podcast, you’ll explore what today’s leaders truly need, from navigating everyday problem solving to handling tough moments of workplace conflict with steadiness and respect. Episodes dive into setting healthy workplace boundaries, strengthening workplace collaboration, and building the emotional intelligence and emotional agility that make leadership sustainable. Whether you’re managing a growing team or refining your voice as a decision-maker, you’ll find insights that help you cultivate a resilient growth mindset and elevate your impact.

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When Help Turns Into Control

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What if the way that you're trying to be a supportive leader is actually making your team more dependent on you?

unknown 0:07

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to the Intentional Leaders Podcast. This is a podcast where we share tips, tools, and ideas for helping you become the leader that you want to be with intention and purpose. In this episode, we're going to talk about when helping is actually hurting your team and how we can be very well intentioned in our support, but we quietly rescue or control people in a way that reduces their confidence or competence. I'm going to share with you warning signs of that in your own leadership or others. You can identify calm behaviors that actually create dependence on you by stepping in too quickly or taking over from allowing your team to grow independently and autonomously and learn how to provide support without taking over. And how do you walk away from things? And when do you walk away from things in a way that builds confidence or competence? So let's get started and identify some of the nuanced ways that we may be controlling rather than supporting.

Supportive Leader Or Quiet Micromanager

SPEAKER_00 1:12

So today we're going to talk about your leadership. And I want you to really lean into this. Are you supportive or controlling? And most of us think that's a difference, right? I am supportive and caring and compassionate, or I'm micromanaging and controlling. And that it's an either-or. What about if it's I'm supportive and the things I'm doing are actually controlling? Yikes. What if that is occurring? And I see this a lot. And the reason I see it is because people want to be helpful. And in their help or the way that they're providing help or guidance is actually not serving the other person well and maybe not even serving them well. So I want to give you some nuances in this. So, but I want to make a clear distinction between support helps someone build capability, their capability, right? You're being supportive of them to get better. And rescuing or controlling takes capability away, ownership away. And sometimes we control through rescuing in a way that's not helpful, but we think we're being supportive. And I'm going to give you some warning signs of this because you've already like, I don't even know if I do that, but you might know someone who does. And if so, you can share this podcast with

Warning Sign One: Ending Struggle Early

SPEAKER_00 2:41

them. But I'm going to give you four warning signs. Number one is you step in before you've given someone a chance to struggle. What? We shouldn't let people struggle, should we? Hmm. That's an important question. When did you learn to do something different? When did you learn how to walk? When you fell down about a bazillion times. How did you learn to cook? Probably when you burned a bunch of crap. How did you learn to play sports? Probably from not doing it well, right? There are always times the struggle is what helps us to learn and change and grow. And I think it's ironic that that's how we learn and grow. But when we look at other people struggling, we're like, oh, that's not cool. They can't struggle. And we don't want that discomfort. And it's our discomfort, right? It's our discomfort or our awkwardness that we think as a leader, I'm supposed to be supportive of them. I'm supposed to helpful, be helpful. And I can't allow them to struggle. And then we insert ourselves too quickly that they didn't actually learn anything. And what they what we just taught them is that we're going to rescue them, which is ultimately not helpful, helpful. But and I'm not saying set people up to fail and watch them like a catastrophe unfolds, and you're like, well, you gotta learn. I'm not talking about that, because I've certainly experienced that in my life too. I'm not talking that, but allow the struggle to happen for learning and growth. And that's one of the signs of are we rescuing people and actually controlling them by doing that. Number

Warning Sign Two: Answers Over Questions

SPEAKER_00 4:23

two, this one, I see a lot so so much. Um, that we give answers rather than asking questions. And again, why do we do that? We do that because as a leader, you know. Of course, you know the answer. When someone comes to you with a problem, you're like, yeah, I've been doing this for five years or 10 years or 30 years or 35 years. Of course I know the answer. In fact, I just did a keynotes session earlier this week about that dopamine of being right, the the desire for all of us to be right. We're we're actually taught that at a very early age, to be right and to be, and to, and that feels good, right? We're motivated to be right. And so, as leaders, not only do we feel like that's the expectation that we're supposed to be competent, but it feels good to be right. So we give people the answer rather than questions. But what's interesting about that is the questions you ask also makes a difference. So today I had a class, um, today, yesterday and today, and we were focused on practice coaching and practice feedback and practicing good coaching questions. And um, we went through a scenario in which they were developing a coaching planner for someone they wanted to coach. And part of that was asking good questions. How do you get behavior change? You get behavior change not through telling people what to do, but by asking them good questions. And what was interesting is I said, you know, you're gonna develop two to three questions for your coachy. Inevitably, inevitably, one, two, or of those questions are how can I help you? How can I help you? How can I eliminate a barrier? What can I do to help you be successful? And as we were going through the debrief of that section, I said, if you have three questions and and one of them or two of them are about how you can help that person, what are you doing? You're actually taking ownership of something that belongs to them. So questions are important, but the kind of questions leads you to owning something that you want them to own, right? You want them to learn the thing. So ask the questions that allow them to process, create the self-awareness, and create the change.

Warning Sign Three: Owning Their Problems

SPEAKER_00 6:45

And that actually is a warning sign number three is when we take ownership of things that don't belong to us as leaders. And again, I think sometimes we embrace this mindset and this role of a leader is I gotta fix all the problems, I gotta fix the problem, right? So then someone comes to you with a problem, and one, you may actually amplify the problem by commiserating with them, like, oh, this bad thing happened, or this I had to deal with this client or this customer, and it was really hard, or I had to deal with this project team, or this expectation is really, and we inadvertently amplify it by giving it attention without problem solving with that person. We are therefore taking ownership of it by actually amplifying it and not allowing them to fix it. Number two, we may actually rescue them from it by saying, I'll I'll take care of that for you. And especially new coaches and leaders do that because they think that's their job. I'll take care of that problem. So now I've created dependence. Or third, um, have you ever heard of the uh triangle, the drama triangle, right? They come to you about someone else, and you think, oh, I'll go talk to that person. Because we don't want to teach them to talk to that person. We should talk to that person. So we've just inadvertently triangulated the problem, right? So when we take ownership, we can take ownership by solving it, by amplifying it, by rescuing them. And we don't do that intentionally. Our intentions as leaders are very, very good, but those inadvertently are controlling behaviors.

Warning Sign Four: Needing It Your Way

SPEAKER_00 8:25

What the heck? Number four is when you need it done your way. And back when I first met my now beloved husband, um, the way he would clean the bathroom was with Windex and paper towels. And I always thought, like, there are different products for different spaces in this bathroom. And like paper towels, is that gonna get gritty enough? And Windex, like what the heck is that all about? And I thought, uh, I'd rather do it myself. Controlling? Absolutely 100%. Did he get the bathroom clean? Of course he did. But it was my way of doing it, and it wasn't until later that I was like, how often do we do that as leaders? How often do we think, well, and again, we do it with good intentions because we do it and think, well, hey, I learned it the hard way, and I know this is the best practice way. This is the best practice way, this is the efficient way, this will be more effective. I'll save you from any mistakes. So do it this way. But in the meantime, we're controlling their opportunity to own it and demonstrate initiative and maybe do it a different way, a better way. So when you think about delegation as a great example, delegating the thing is one thing, delegating the way they have to do that thing is a whole nother level of do they really need to do it that way or not? We allow people, and that's what empowerment truly is. Empowerment is I'm giving you the power to decide. And you know, as human beings and adults and employees, ownership and that ability to problem solve ourselves and master ourselves and have autonomy creates intrinsic motivation and engagement. So by taking that away from people, we're not only controlling their behavior, we're unintentionally demotivating them. Hashtag big bummer. And I'm not saying don't share your great ideas because you probably have a lot of them and you've learned, I know I have things that work that don't work, but allow it to be a choice, allow it to be a learning experience.

Dependence Patterns And Learned Helplessness

SPEAKER_00 10:42

And the last one is when you see patterns of dependence. You go on vacation and you're getting messages. There's people asking for permission, they ask for reassurance, they ask for your intervention. And all of those things don't necessarily mean that something has gone hugely wrong. But if there's a pattern of that, what it means is people are learned, it's it's called learned helplessness, right? I'll take care of you, I'll do this, I'll do that. And then we teach people to be helpless, again, unintentionally, and that's not a great place to be because again, that help to helplessness means I'm dependent on you. If you're not here, what you're taking vacation? What you're out of the office? What is happening? Right? Like I can't do this on my own. It takes away the autonomy, the freedom, the confidence, and the competence of someone else. And I think what's interesting about this topic is, uh, and I'm going really dark side with it, like these are the warning signs because I think our intentions as leaders and managers and coaches are good. We think I want to be helpful, I want to be supportive. And in that support, are we rescuing and unintentionally taking ownership away? Or are we building people up? And people do not get built up to be more capable and competent by being safe and being protected. So, how how and when are times that we do that?

The Simple Test For Real Support

SPEAKER_00 12:22

So, the five warning signs, again, one, you step in before the struggle. Let people struggle. Think about the times in your life that you struggled. As a child, someone rescued you every time you fell down when you were learning to walk. And I don't mean like let the kid bang their head on the table and break their head off. I'm just saying the struggle has to be real, it has to be awkward, and we have to be able to live with that awkward stage of learning. Number two, you give answers rather than asking good questions. And the questions are also important. Are you asking questions that are putting the focus and the ownership back on you? Number three, you need to do uh you take ownership. You take ownership by either amplifying the problem, reinforcing it, um, or by rescuing them or by triangulating them. And a lot of those, those three things, amplifying a problem or eventing or whatever it is, or rescuing or triangulating, create drama. And I know none of you want drama. I know that to be true. I'm saying it as a universal statement. None of us like drama. So when we take ownership of things, we accelerate and exacerbate the drama. Number four, you need it done your way. Who cares if it's paper towels and windecks? The bathroom is clean. Isn't that what you want? I do. And number four, what you're notice is they're not becoming more capable without you, they're becoming more dependent on you. And you know what? Some people want that dependence. It feels like we're needed, and that feeling of wanting to be needed, we can get that in all kinds of our places of places, but think about being needed because you're actually helping people grow rather than being needed because you need to rescue someone, right? So a simple test could be is my support right now increasing their ownership or capability, or is it increasing their dependence on me? Those are really that's a really important question to continuously answer ourselves, right? To be able to bring that into our conscious behaviors because our intentions tend to be great and the outcomes can be really detrimental. So when you think about support, I'm here to help you handle it, right? Rescue is I'll handle it for you. Control is I'll make sure you handle it my way. And those are three different things. So just be mindful of that. In the next couple of weeks, step back and reflect what does your support look like? What does it feel like, and what is the impact? And how intentionally are you creating capability in others? Because that's where the magic and that's where the growth happens.

The Challenge And The Closing Question

SPEAKER_00 15:17

So here's the challenge I want to leave you with. Take a moment to think about and just pay attention to how you're supporting people around you. Are you actually helping them to become more capable, confident, and independent? Or are you teaching them to need you? Because great leadership isn't measured by how many problems you solve. It's measured how capable are you helping people around you become because of your leadership. So be available without taking over, support without rescuing, and guide without being controlling. And maybe the most powerful question you can ask yourself is this Am I helping the person need me? Or am I helping them believe they don't? That is intentional leadership.