You have an altitude problem.
The moment I said this, my client burst out with a loud “Hah!”
She smiled: “That makes so much sense. I’m still thinking like old me.”
And that old “me” was the best operator in the room. Careful, detailed, complete.
But today, her team didn’t need more detail.
They needed a clear call.
When you keep answering questions your team didn’t ask, give context, exceptions, edge cases, and background, because you’re terrified of being misunderstood …
What they hear is: “This is complicated, so I’ll wait for more direction.”
And then you wonder why nothing moves.
An executive does three important things:
- Highlight the few things that truly matter.
- Make the tradeoff visible (what we’re not doing).
- Show people a simple rule they can use when you’re not in the room (how we make choices along the way).
If you don’t do this, two things can happen: Either your team fills the gap with their best guess and you end up correcting everything. Or they stall and you end up pushing the whole thing.
The worst trap is that this can feel heroic. But is it really?
Keep lighting the path,
Michael
