645 | Too Much Leadership: Why Good Intentions Create a Disempowered Team

Can you praise too much, hold people accountable so tightly it backfires over delegate and cause more confusion than clarity?

In today's episode, we're talking about what happens when you lead too much in key areas and how to bring it back to balance. That is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto Show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. I want you to picture this. Picture that you're trying to care for a plant, right?

So that you're watering it every day, maybe even twice a day. You want it to thrive, but the roots rot out, the leaves turn yellow and the plants start to wither. You didn't ignore it, you didn't neglect it, you over cared for it.

Crazy thing is this happens in leadership too. When you over praise, when you over monitor, when you offload too much too fast.

You don't empower your team, you overwhelm them or you undercut them, if you will. That is what we are talking about today.

We're talking about what it looks like when you get far away from the sweet spot and how to get back to that sweet spot.

Now, side note, to parents, when you over love, you do the same exact thing. You know, we've done over, geez, I think we've had 600 Next-Level Lives.

You know, I've been doing this kind of stuff for a very long time. You know, counseling and ministry, all kinds of stuff, right? And I will tell you, I, I have seen people, great people that have over loved their children or child, right?

They may have over loved a child and that person hits the world with man, I can do everything right. I am such a good person. Mom, dad, they think I'm incredible.

They compliment me all the time and do stuff for me and take care of me and then they hit the world and find out that they are at best, best mediocre.

They're middle of the road and then they struggle for years because their entire life has been set up believing that they are better than everybody else.

Because mom and dad just constantly told them how incredible they were. Folks, that's not love. That's over caring. That is doing. You are setting that child up for failure when they become an adult.

There has to be a quality balance of things that we're going to talk about today. There needs to be quality praise at the right times and for the right things and for the right character building things, not for things that don't matter.

You don't want to enable, you don't want to entitle. You have to have accountability.

So the very things that we were talking about today with you leading a team or a team member, if you're a parent, you have to understand you need these with your kids as well.

If you overdo it, then you will unfortunately have a kid who struggles when they become an adult. So let's talk about--

Too Much Praise Feels Inauthentic (00:03:24)

The first thing is too much praise. The truth is that too much praise feels inauthentic.

Praise needs to be authentic, right? So if you're applauding every little thing from, you know, showing up on time, which is. That's. That's great, but that should be something that's expected, right?

Or to completing, you know, simple tasks, then your praise starts to feel shallow or fake. I don't ever praise somebody for showing up on time.

Now, if somebody has showed up on time for an incredibly long period of time and never had you never been late or something, well, that's something to recognize. But that's once a year, maybe, right? Right.

That you're not sitting there every day going, you did it again. Way to go. You look, you're here. It's on time. You're on time. I'm so proud of you. That's ridiculous.

What happens is when somebody feels that you're consistently praising them for something that's simple, something that's easy, something that's not that big of a deal, then your praise comes across as being super shallow or super fake.

Surely you cannot think I am that great that you keep telling me that about showing up on time. That's ridiculous. So when every single thing is celebrated, nothing feels meaningful.

People start wondering, do you actually mean the things that you're saying? Are you. Do you really mean this? Or, you know, it's just ridiculous. I had a leader.

I loved this leader decades ago. Just a great guy. But I could be walking down the hallway and I could see the little, you know, bell above his ding, above his head.

It's like, I need to compliment Chris on something. And he good job on such and such. And I went one day, I just felt so inauthentic. And this is a great human being, great person, just loved him.

But one day, I was so frustrated with the lack of authenticity in the compliments, I said, listen, you don't have to give me compliments all the time. And he goes, oh, I don't.

I was like, no. He goes, okay. And I went, well, I'm probably not going to get another compliment, Ed. Sure enough, I don't think I may have gotten maybe one or two in a long period of time.

Maybe I don't even. I'm not even sure I got that, because what I registered in his head is, don't give him compliments. And what I was wanting to communicate, which would have been a horrible thing for me to say.

It, you know, if I said, hey, your compliments don't seem authentic, that would have been a terrible thing to say.

But I was frustrated because I felt like they were inauthentic and what I was doing, you know, this person didn't care enough to actually look at all I was getting done and accomplishing and compliment me on the bigger things, the finer things of what was happening.

That is a terrible place to be.

So understand that you can lose the power of your praise when it becomes generic or overused. It did for me. All right?

And again, I'm not somebody who's looking for praise, which is why it was easy for me to say, hey, you don't have to do that. I'm not looking for that. But it's nice when somebody authentically praises you for something and, you know, wow, that is very sincere.

So be sincere. Be selective. Be sincere. Make sure that, again, you're tying it to something that matters, something that has impact, tied to your. Your values, your goals. I'm always looking or trying to. I'm always trying to tie praise to character.

Years ago, I was talking with Meg Meeker. She's the author of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. And we were talking about this, and I was always somebody who.

Especially when it came to kids, not adults, but with kids, I would be like, oh, you're so cute today. Look at your cute little outfit. Oh, you know all this stuff.

And realized I was creating, thinking that I'm doing something right. What I was doing was creating the. That their worth was based on how they looked. And she was like, no, yeah, always. Always compliment their character. And I'm like, wow, I do that with adults.

Why is it with kids I wasn't doing that? And that was, you know, I don't know, 20 years ago or so. And I have ever since made sure that I'm looking to compliment character.

Doesn't mean that I can't say, you know, hey, your outfit looks cute. What it means is that that is one out of 50 compliments. Right? I'm going to spend time focusing on complimenting, you know, the character, the values that I want to see.

Over-Accountability Breeds Resentment and Fear (00:08:14)

Number two, over accountability.

I know some of you are like, gosh, Chris, I'm not even doing much accountability. I get it. I understand. It's a tough one. You got to get it going. But there are some people that go over the top.

If you do too much accountability, then it breeds resentment, it breeds fear.

So if you're somebody who's checking up on every single detail, you know, setting ridiculously rigid guidelines or deadlines or reacting to every misstep with intensity, and-- folks, we can all do that when, especially if we're having a bad day, you probably have realized that there's time somebody does something wrong and you're struggling, and your reaction is not good.

I recently had this with a business owner who's doing a, a job for me, and things were not going his way one morning.

I mean, just not going his way. And it was so funny because I knew that. And I'm. I'm. I'm the guy who's going to try and help out. And then I asked a question and he, man, he responded back to me a little rudely.

And I just, you know, had to laugh on the inside because I was like, I know this isn't who this guy is.

He's been such a nice guy the entire time, but this is a big mistake that's happening. He was worried that it was going to cost him an incredible amount of money. And so it was just. He was having a bad moment. Right.

But his response was pretty intense. Now, if it's that way, all the time, I just prayed for him, laughed it off inside, and then tried to solve the problem for him.

I tried to help him. What if we did this? What about this? You know, threw out a couple of ideas, and praise God, he came up with the right idea and everything worked out.

You got to realize that sometimes people have bad days. You have, you know, you have. We all have. Right? That happens.

But if you're responding too intensely all the time to a misstep, if you are, you know, just being over the top, if you are being too harsh in parents, sometimes you do that with your kids.

We all have done that with our kids, where you're too harsh, someday, maybe your kid's just driving you nuts and you just respond too harshly.

This is why having a great partner in your marriage, a great spouse, someone who can go, hey, that might have been too much. Let's talk about that. You know, being able to do that, hey, what's going on in your day? What are you experiencing?

If you can realize that you're going over the top, then you will realize that by doing so, you're going to stop your team from taking initiative because they're, they're going to be way afraid of messing up.

You're going to stop your kids from taking initiative because they're going to be too afraid of messing up. It creates this fear of failure inside. We've all done it, we've all experienced it.

But if you are caring more about the person, your child, your team member, whatever, your spouse, you know, your client, then you care about yourself in that moment, then what you will realize is that you're actually shutting that person down.

If they're not, you know, if they're struggling with anything in their own Root System, then you're probably shutting that person down. Now I do this for a living.

So with this business owner was a little rude to me. I didn't, it didn't hurt my feelings. I didn't get, become a victim. I recognized he was struggling with something that day and I had grace and mercy in the moment, right?

That's where we really should be. We should respond to people that way. But you also need to understand that your team is going to mess up if they continue to do the same mess ups, then more accountability, right?

Accountability keeps you from having to be the bad person. But if you're not putting accountability in place, then what you will find is you're probably going to respond pretty harshly.

So if you are over monitoring, if you will, if you're, you know, if you're hovering over your team members and you're, you're, you're everything is wrong or your responses are over the top for, for little things, then you have to understand you're going to kill creativity.

You're going to promote fear of failure. You're going to promote people hiding things from you. You're not going to promote problem solving.

Nobody wants to problem solve for the person who's going to rip their head off or they're going to feel like you are.

So you're not promoting the thing that you want, unfortunately you're promoting something else. So accountability. While I'm telling you, please hear me. No way, shape or form am I telling you not to do accountability.

Do accountability, just don't overdo it. You're probably far from overdoing it. Some of you are probably overdoing it.

But if you're somebody who's not doing much accountability, I don't want you to hear this and go, oh gosh, I don't need to do accountability. No, no, no, no. Kick it into gear.

Just if you find yourself that every little misstep become something that you're responding to harshly, then you've gone too far.

So focus on outcomes, not micromanagement, right? I hope that makes sense. Allow room for people to, to make mistakes, to, to have teaching moments or learning opportunities, right?

So set your expectations, make sure that they're clear, check the progress and if you've set them up for success, then you can trust that they're going to deliver. Now if they don't, then we go back over that.

Over-Delegating Without Support Sets People Up to Fail (00:13:57)

Number three, over-delegating without support sets people up to fail.

So if you've dumped a ton of stuff, right?

If you've assigned a complex project, let's say to a team member or to a team that doesn't have the experience and you give them a deadline, but there's no training, there's no guidance, there's, there's no check ins, there's the, you know, the.

Well, I told them once what to do. Well, I showed them this once. They should know this, they should understand this.

Folks, I will tell you, they will miss the mark and frustration is going to hit. Everybody involved.

You, the team member, the team, the client, the vendor, everybody involved is going to experience a level of frustration because you didn't do a good job of making sure that they were set up for success.

So if you're just giving stuff out, handing stuff out and then going, well, I told them once they should have it, then you cannot be shocked that it goes wrong, that it doesn't go the right way.

If you are delegating without clarity or support, then you will find that team members feel abandoned. They don't feel empowered, they don't feel like you think they're amazing.

What they feel like is, wow, this person is just setting me up to fail. Or they are already there because the Root System is screaming that they're, you know, going to be a failure anyways.

And so they're struggling, going, well, how do I not look like a failure?

How do I keep this from looking like a failure?

So understand, effective delegation absolutely includes preparation, it includes context and includes coaching, follow up, proper timelines, solutions, getting in there and asking questions, making sure that you're gaining perspective, making sure that you're making yourself available.

If you will do those things, then you will be probably shocked at how well it goes.

So delegate it with clarity. What, why, by when? What does done look like? What does success look like? Right?

Provide that support early and often. Be available. Make sure that you're there even for a legitimate solid question. Don't Just answer the questions, guide them to the answer if you possibly can.

And then what you can see is that you can gradually increase the autonomy that that person or that team has. And when you do that, you will find that trust absolutely grows.

Overleading Creates Dependency—or Rebellion (00:16:29)

Number four, overleading creates dependency or even rebellion.

So when you lead too much in any area, your team tends to do one of two things.

They end up depending on you. For every next step, you totally become the bottleneck. They have to come to you for everything.

They know that they can't do anything on their own, that they have to run everything by you, or you will find pushback.

You will find that they disengage because they feel suffocated. So you have certain personality styles that are going to go, oh, the message is clear. Don't do anything without Chris's response.

I have to go to Chris for everything, which does not happen in my business at all. But certain personality styles will literally take that to mean you don't want me to solve this on my own. You want to solve.

You want to be a part of everything. So I've got to come to you. Other personality styles are going to receive that as my gosh, you won't even let me do anything.

You're paying me. I've got gifts, I've got talents. I can do this, and you won't let me do anything. So the thing to understand is that too much leadership doesn't create loyalty. It doesn't create people thinking that you're amazing.

It creates tension. It creates fear of failure. It creates I'm not good enough in certain people. It creates I am good enough. And you're not allowing me to do what I'm good enough to do.

So recognize if you're making yourself the bottleneck. If so, then I guarantee you you have problems on your team. You have problems in your culture. So what should you do instead? Well, create space.

Create space for your team to think, for them to solve, for them to grow. Right. You've got to give them the opportunities to think, solve, and grow as a parent again.

Parenting when I was younger, boy, I wish everything I've told my girls, I would so love to take you back as little girls and start all over again. Because the stuff that I know now, I think every parent ends up feeling that way, right?

But parenting, you know, later on in life, it is amazing how much I have had to stop people from solving every single problem for my daughter, for our grandkids.

It is just amazing how much people want to step in it and what it is, is you're actually, you're stealing their self worth by promoting your own self esteem, by not allowing them to think, by not allowing them to solve and grow.

So I'm speaking to parents and leaders at the same time here, right? You're doing the same thing with your team that you're doing with your kids.

If you don't allow them the opportunity to fix a problem, you know that something spills and they're crying and you're over there fixing it and holding them and everything is okay. No, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, let's grab some paper towels. Let's clean that up.

Hey, good job. You're doing good. Let's get this. Your kid will be so confused when they're looking at it. I'm assuming that they're little in this, the scenario.

If they're 17, you probably shouldn't lead them this way, but they probably shouldn't be crying over something they spilled.

So if you're helping them to see they can do it on their own, they can solve it, everything is okay. They don't have to, you know, feel like they massively failed.

If you can help them, then you will be amazed at how that teaches them to stop and solve instead of stop and cry. It teaches them to be an overcomer as opposed to a victim to a situation.

Folks, and a lot of you parents out there, you're listening to this world tell you that you've got to do all this stuff and you're a horrible parent if you make your kid do some chores around the house or clean up after themselves or you have to realize who you're listening to.

Horrid parenting advice from people who are raising enabled and entitled brats and their kids may come work for you someday.

So don't send your kids out in the world listening to the advice of people who don't know what the heck they're talking about, right? Create a child who don't create a child.

Create an adult who can think for themselves, who can solve, who can grow. Same thing as you're leading your team.

If you are the bottleneck, if you're the one who's doing everything yourself, then you're not allowing your team to think, solve and grow.

The truth is that trust doesn't mean absence. It means your you're available, but you're not intrusive in the situation, right?

The Sweet Spot Is Empowerment, Not Control (00:21:32)

So key point number five, the sweet spot is empowerment, not control.

When you move from, let's say, constantly praising every single thing or, or highlighting a team, you know, every single moment to actually putting it in right spaces, like, say, a team huddle or something.

Now, I have to give you caveat on this, right? So let's say you're praising inside of a team huddle instead of every single thing that's going on.

Certain team members are going to love it, but certain team members also don't want to be called out.

Your C's and your S's don't want to be called out in the group. Right. Your D's and I's would love it. So maybe save it for specific situations.

Understand, certain personalities don't like to be center of attention. So you may be praising in a situation where they're now embarrassed and, you know, aren't happy about it.

So just make sure that you're being specific about when you praise, but always praise your teams when they're together. Right?

Do it when they're together. Hey, guys, here's this thing. You guys just accomplished this. You. You got ahead of the deadline.

You did it with such great care and concern for the clients, everybody involved. Great job. Well done. What are we trying to accomplish here? This is just about praise.

No, we're trying to empower the team. We're trying to make sure that we're doing a more consistent rhythm of encouraging. Hey, when you did this, this is what happened. Here's how the, you know, this was the expected outcome. Here's what you did.

Here's what it looked like. Great job on this. The goal is to empower people to run with it. Right? We should be, as people are growing, letting out a little bit more rope.

It's not saying don't lead less. I'm not saying don't lead less. The goal isn't less leadership. It's better leadership. It's empowering.

Teams, you know, that don't need a cheerleader or a babysitter, but they need somebody who comes along, gives them clear vision, gives them clear support, shows them trust, and then empowers them to go and do not.

Just somebody who is controlling. Hey, do it this way. Hey, make that happen. Okay, good job. But here's what I want. Here's how this has to go.

The sweet spot is making sure that you are guiding and directing and then also recognizing how well they've done running things on their own, running with it, making it happen.

Empower them to be able to do more. If they're not doing well, lead better, dig in and help out.

Find out where you didn't gain enough quality perspective or you didn't guide and direct enough Take a hard look at what caused them not to do well and then fix that, go after that.

But understand it's not about control. Do it this way, do it this way. Hey, don't do that. Hey, don't do that.

Get in there and encourage a team and help them do accomplishing. Individuals or team, doesn't matter what it is, but empower them to do well.

Action Steps (00:24:39)

So here's the action steps I want you to take for this week.

First off, audit your praise, right? Is it, is it specific, is it authentic, or is it just habitual? If it is, then you got to change that.

Number two, ask your team privately, do I check in too much or too little? You know, find out. It's okay to ask that. How do you feel like I'm doing?

Tell them you want the 100%, you know, authentic answer. Be honest with me. Am I giving you enough check ins or my overdoing?

Number three, evaluate your last delegation. Did you give clarity? Did you give resources? Did you make sure that they had support all along the way?

Number four, back off one area by maybe 10%, you know, so give your team a little bit more space so that they can step up.

What you will discover is there's a level of trust that you have to gain in there as well, with which is there's no problem with that.

But as you gain the trust, back off some more, let out some more rope. You're never going to hear me say give them all the rope, right? That's just not something you should do with a team member.

But you could be just barely holding on to the end with somebody who's done a phenomenal job.

Number five, establish a healthy rhythm. Make sure that you use weekly touch points for praise, for, for accountability, for task updates, for empowerment, for encouragement.

Additional Resources (00:26:06)

Now, additional resources for you are all of the last episodes in this series. Parts one through four: 641, 642, 643, 644:

• • 641 | The Role of Coaching in Leadership: Growing Teams Through Mentorship
  • 642 | Too Little Leadership—Communication, Problem-Solving, and Guidance
  • 643 | Too Much Leadership—Communication, Problem-Solving, and Guidance
  • 644 | Too Little Leadership: The Silent Cost of Missing Praise, Accountability & Delegation

So hitting all those areas, make sure that you go back. If you've not listened to those, go back and, and listen, go through each one of those.

It's. This is a powerful series for helping you to know what to balance, right?

Conclusion (00:26:28)

But here's the truth. Overleading can be just as damaging as underleading. So too much praise makes recognition meaningless. Too much accountability feels like a punishment.

Too much delegation without guidance, well, it's not, it's not trust. It feels more like abdication than anything. But when you step back and you ask the question, what does my team really need from me in this moment.

That's when leadership becomes powerful. That's when you move from reactive to intentional. That's when you move from overloaded to effective. When you.

You go from solo hero to the builder of other leaders, which is exactly what you want in your team. Trust me, I have been training leaders for decades. I have been training my own leaders for decades. That is what you want.

Now, this wraps up our Leadership Balance series.

Over the past several episodes, we've looked at the tensions leaders face every day. When to step in and when to step back, when to speak, when to listen, when to guide and when to release.

And here's what I hope you've seen. Leadership isn't a formula. There's no perfect way. It's not a 50/50 balance. It is a relationship. It's a relationship. It's a rhythm. It's knowing your people.

It's understanding your role, and it's leading both your role and their roles with clarity and care. Care more about other people than you care about yourself. You will make great team members and great leaders.

So if you're walking away from this series feeling challenged, good. That's exactly what I want. That means that you're growing. If you're feeling a little convicted, great.

That means you're paying attention. If you're ready to lead from a healthier place, not just for your team's sake, but for yours, then it's time to take action.

Well, folks, that's all the time that we have for today. I hope this has blessed you. I hope this has helped you. As always, take this information. Change your leadership. Change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.