660 | You’re Busy. But Are You Actually Leading?

If you're drowning in tasks but your team still can't move without you, that's not leadership. That's exhaustion. With a title.

Today, we're breaking the leadership crazy cycle and reclaiming the role only you can play in your business. 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, and welcome to 2026. I hope this is starting off good for you and everybody else out there.

As you can tell, I've. My-- My voice is a little bit different. Hopefully this is going to be gone very soon. Every year, I hear leaders coming up with the same struggle. I hear the same thing over and over again, and that is I'm so busy.

And I get that. I understand that. I'm a pretty darn busy person myself. But here's the truth. Activity doesn't mean that it's actually influence, and motion doesn't actually mean that it's momentum.

So today, we're starting the year by helping you step out of the weeds, elevate your influence, and lead with clarity so your team can finally run without you being the bottleneck.

So let me just kind of give you a little bit of the behind the scenes on this.

And most conversations that we have with leaders looking to be our clients to come and get coaching from us, the same pattern keeps surfacing, you know, over and over.

Leaders who are overwhelmed, they're stretched thin, they're unintentionally slowing down their teams, and they're doing everything, everything except leading.

That's the one part that they're not doing right. So let's address this head on to help you start the year with the clarity your team absolutely needs.

Now, here's what we're going to kind of dive in today. How to recognize when you've replaced leadership with busyness. Also the three signs that your team is operating without direction.

We're going to get into the mindset shift that unlocks true leadership for 2026 and practical steps to reclaim margin and influence this week, starting this week. So let's get into these key points.

Busyness Feels Like Progress, But It’s Actually Hiding What’s Broken (00:02:26)

Point number one, busyness feels like progress, but it's actually hiding what's broken.

Now, every leader is busy. Every leader. Well, most leaders. Let me say that every leader should have a level of busyness to what they're doing.

However, what you're busy in is the thing that is probably keeping you from leading. Well, from leading your team, from getting your team to be able to operate without you. Right.

And that, that should be a goal at some point, being able to duplicate yourself to the point that you're not needed every second of the day.

So let's start with the biggest trap that leaders fall into at the beginning of every year, right? You set these goals. You want to do things differently. You want to have a phenomenal team.

Everything's going to be amazing, but your day ends up being full of emails, approvals, quick decisions, quick interruptions. You keep hearing that. Hey, just one more thing. If.

Do you have five minutes, which is always 30?

Do you have two minutes, which is always 15? Right.

Well, I'm sorry to tell you guys that that's not productivity. Right? It is productivity if you're a team member who should be handling administrative tasks all day long, but you're not.

You're a leader. And by definition, you should be spending the bulk of your time leading people to success. So this is more of a warning sign that something upstream needs clarity.

So busyness creates the illusion that you're accomplishing a lot when you're actually just reacting. And I know it seems crazy to even hear that when you're like, Chris, I have done 10,000 things today.

How can you say I'm not being productive? I'm not saying you're not being productive at all. What I'm saying is you're probably not being productive in what should be the most important area as a leader, and that's leading people to success.

So often what happens is we spend our day in tasks and things and whatever it is that causes us to be so busy.

I remember I worked with a leader decades ago who was always so busy in his numbers and, and contracts and processes, and he ran a massive team, and anytime he'd leave his office, his head would be hung down.

You know, just didn't want anybody to look him in the eyes because he didn't want to have to stop and talk with anybody.

And everybody on his team was just hoping that they could get a second with him. Just a hi, how are you doing? Anything. But he had too much to do.

Now, if you stepped outside of business with this guy, most amazing heart on the planet, just a super loving guy, super caring guy, give you the shirt off his back.

But crazy enough in his mind, the way that he needed to operate at work was he had to stay super busy with all the things that were on his plate.

And what should have been on his plate was making all those people successful.

Now, I'm not saying you have to go have personal conversations with everybody on your team every two seconds, but are you doing everything to make sure that they are successful at what they are supposed to be doing?

If you are super busy and you're not spending much time and in fact whenever I ask this question, it's hilarious.

Calculate the amount of time you actually spent. Actually is the word here that you should focus on, you know, actually leading people.

I'm not talking about answering emails or you know, saying hi in the hallway, actually leading people to being better at what they do.

Calculate how much time you spent this week, last week, this month. Well, it's not very far into this month, but calculate how much time you've spent actually leading.

And what you'll find is, is your answer is probably pretty darn small, probably because you have so many things on your plate, or it's also very highly possible and highly probable.

You've also not been taught how to lead people to success. That's why we're here. That's why we do what we do. Many leaders stay so busy because it feels safer than slowing down and evaluating what's not working.

It feels safer than finding out that there's real heavy duty things that they've got to fix or, or there's blind spots or there's, you know, holes in people's abilities that there's lack of clarity that maybe they don't even understand what to give in that area.

So staying busy seems productive.

And yet at the end of the day, we could have moved a heck of a lot further if we would have trained people up to move the needle, if we would have made people better, we could have gotten a lot further down the, the proverbial court, if you will.

But when you stay busy, then your team stays pretty much right where they are now.

Hopefully you've got some self starters on the team that are just going to grow without you, but there's a really good chance you got a decent number that aren't.

And even if it's just a couple, don't you even want those few to be better and doing better? So if your calendar is full but your team is still waiting on you, busyness isn't helping.

It's hiding the real issues. And this needs your attention.

When Your Team Can’t Move Without You, You’re Running a Dependency Culture (00:08:06)

Point number two, when your team can't move without you, you're running a dependency culture. Now here's another area where leaders unintentionally sabotage their team's momentum.

So I've had multiple events over the years where I will have a leader tell me my team just. They don't move without me. They're constantly waiting for me. And that's a great thing for a leader to recognize.

You know, I've got a team that's not willing to move, that they've got to always come to me. The funny thing is, usually when I hear that as I continue to dig in and dig in and dig in, what I find is almost always the same thing.

How many times that leader jumps in ahead of the team. Now, I will tell you, in my early leadership years, this is something I struggled with.

I am a fixer, as so many of us are. I'm a fixer, and I see something and I want to solve it and I want to fix it, and I want to show somebody how to do it, and I want to, you know, get on it and get it done.

And I did not realize how much that was creating a massive dependency on me. What I was doing was in my own culture, or actually even in the cultures I was working in, in my own team culture, what I was creating was a dependency on me, Praise God.

I learned that decently fast. And what I realized was how much I was holding back the very team that I thought I was trying to make better.

So instead of jumping in all the time, I made myself a deal that with any new hire, within the first 90 days, I'll answer any questions you've got. You got questions, I'll answer. You need help on something, I'm going to help you.

But come day 91, I'm going to start pushing it back on you. And the crazy thing is, with great team members is it doesn't even take that long.

But there's been times over the last 30 plus years where we get to day 91 and I'll start asking, you know, somebody will ask me a question, I'll say, well, what do you think the answer is? And they're like, well, I don't know.

That's why I'm asking you. Well, why don't you tell me what the answer is? You start putting it back in their lap.

And I tell them, I always tell people, hey, you know, come day 91, I'm gonna. I'm gonna be looking to you for the answers. And by doing so, what it does is it does multiple things.

One, it treats people with dignity, right? It treats people in a way of saying, I believe you got this.

I believe you can come up with this answer as well as, I'm not leaving you here if you don't right bust your butt, try and get to a solution. If you don't get to the solution, I'll jump in and I'll help you out in this process.

But my goal is at this point is to train you. So, one, it's treating people with dignity, too. It's giving yourself the opportunity to train your team, to train team members, to help team members learn and grow on the spot.

So instead of just solving things for them, it allows you to actually step up and go, hey, let me walk you down this path of how I would solve this problem. Here's how I would get to that answer.

And the more that you do that, the more it helps your team members grow and not depend on you. So leaders who jump in too quickly, they're just thinking that they're being helpful, but they're actually stunning their team's confidence.

They're actually stunning their team's growth, right? So the more that you create dependency on you, the more you create a lack of clarity, a lack of confidence, a lack of risk taking.

Man, I like a team that takes risks. So we need to make sure that we're not stepping in too quickly and cutting off our team's abilities. If your team pauses when you're not available, you haven't delegated properly, you're still holding the reins.

Your Team Mirrors Your Pace, Not Your Priorities (00:12:06)

Point number three, your team mirrors your pace, not your priorities. So let's talk about a pattern I've seen in almost every overwhelmed business owner and business leader.

If you're bouncing between tasks, if you're switching priorities midday, if you're answering messages, and at all hours, you know, slack messages, if people can see what you're doing, then don't be surprised if your team does the exact same thing.

When all of that stuff started coming out, where you had, like, you know, messaging systems and stuff, where you could send stuff instantly, hence instant message.

I found that for me, again, in my younger leadership years, I would send stuff, I'd have it on my mind, and I'm like, hey, I'm just going to send something to somebody, not thinking anything of it.

And then all of a sudden, I started getting answers back, and I was not happy with this. Now, this is off hours. I was young, tons of energy. But I started realizing that my team was doing well, not.

Not the entire team. But I had certain team members that if I sent something out, they were going to respond no matter what time it was. And it taught me a couple of important things.

One, it taught me that my team was going to follow my pace if I was going to Be sending out something at 11, 12 o' clock at night, which probably not going to happen at 11 or 12.

But even if I sent something at like, you know, eight or nine, then they were going to respond just like if I sent it. They wanted to respond back as quickly as possible. Why?

Because they wanted to show that they were as hard at work as I was. So what did that make me think as a leader? I'm interrupting my team members life that didn't come to work for me at 8 o' clock at night.

They are supposed to be living their life and living with their family and doing things that are important to them. Right.

I want them to be done with work and be able to enjoy their life so they can come in the next day and instead of being worn out from answering their leaders, you know, emails or instant messages, at 9 o' clock at night, they're ready to go, they're full of energy.

It also taught me something very important about me. What in the heck was I doing? The crazy thing is none of it was crazy important. It was just, oh, that thing's on my mind.

Ah, I forgot about that. That's when I created the Closing Out Your Day system. That's when I really dug in and said, enough.

I shouldn't be doing this if I don't want my team to do this, how come I think it's okay for me if I don't want them to do it, why should I be doing it?

I created if for those of you that if you've been through the Killing the Leadership Crazy Cycle, you understand the closing out your day concept which is so vitally important.

Learning how not to carry your day into your evening. Learning how to set your next day up for colossal success. So you have to understand that your team doesn't follow just what you say, they follow what you model.

So if you live in a constant urgency, if you live in constant fire drills, last minute decisions, guess what? So will your team. Your team is going to do exactly the same thing.

And if it's too much, you're probably going to lose some good people who can't handle that level of stress. You shouldn't be handling that level of stress. Lead people well, you shouldn't have to be there.

I'm not saying that it's not going to happen. Once in a while, you know when the ox is in the ditch. Get the ox out of the ditch. But it shouldn't be a constant.

If your team seems scattered or overwhelmed, the route is often the pace that you've unintentionally set you probably well. And there's probably some folks out there that have intentionally set a pace and want their team to run hard like that.

I'm going to tell you, I just find that I like my team to work hard, but I don't like them being overwhelmed. I don't like them being underwhelmed. I just like them being whelmed.

No, I want them to bust their butts while they're at work and get things done, but I don't want them to be overwhelmed. I want them to be focused really well on what they've got to accomplish in getting it done.

Hitting goals, hitting targets, hitting metrics. If I've done that well, then I've got a team who loves to show up every single day, who loves to knock it out of the park.

So your team is never going to be calmer, clearer, more focused than the pace that you demonstrate. If they get to see that you work hard, but you also take time and you play hard as well, then they will do the same thing.

Clarity Builds What Hustle Can’t (00:17:10)

Point number four, clarity builds what hustle can't. Now let's move to what actually creates team momentum. So if your team is asking questions like, hey, is this priority? Or hey, who owns this part?

Then that's a clarity issue. It's not an effort issue. And if they're not asking those questions and nobody's picking it up, then you really should be concerned as well. But when you have folks that are asking questions that to you seem silly.

Don't you know this? Don't you understand this part? Haven't we talked through this? When people know exactly what success looks like, they stop relying on you for constant input.

So I'm going to suggest that there's probably a level of clarity that has not been communicated. There's probably a level of accountability that has not been trained and taught. These are things you need to make sure that you're putting in place.

People need to know what success looks like every day. What do I do today to be successful for you? Team leader, business owner? What do I do today? What is on my schedule? What is on my KRAs? What does success look like?

What do you expect of me when you help every team member understand what success looks like? When they have accountability, which, believe it or not, great team members will love that.

They will love accountability that shows them what winning looks like. Trust me, you would too. You would love to know, hey, if I do these things, I win. Fantastic. That's great. Let me get after it.

It's the same thing with any great team member. So hustle looks impressive, but it creates burnout. Clarity creates results. So if you've created a culture of hustle and there's plenty of people out there, that's kind of finally slowing down.

You've heard me say this for, you know, well over a decade. How much I. I am not a fan of the hustle culture. And it's starting to die down.

It's getting better because probably too many people have finally figured out that's a stupid way to go about it. You can't work 20 hours a day and then, you know, have four hours for your life and family and sleep.

Right. It's just ridiculous. Once again, you're never going to hear me say, if the ox is in the ditch, don't bust it, bust it. Get the ox out of the ditch. There's times for everything.

There's a time for busting it. There's a time you're going to have to spend some long hours. But if your way of living is. And I mean, I have seen people put out programs that had people hustling for, you know, 16 to 20 hours a day for years.

Years I've known people personally thought leaders who have had programs that were teaching people, your day starts at 5am and it doesn't stop until late into the evening because you gotta hustle, hustle, hustle.

And you're going to get all the goals and all the dreams that you want if you follow this program. Interestingly, none of those programs are really surviving anymore. As a matter of fact, I don't know if any of them are.

I haven't seen any in a very long time because that concept is terrible. What you should be thinking is bust it when you're supposed to be busting it. But with great clarity, you will find there isn't the need for great hustle.

The more clarity you have, the better people will be able to work. The more productivity you're going to get out of every single team member, the more accountability you will have with every team member.

So teach your team. I want you to bust it. But let's focus heavily on clarity, because clarity builds leaders. Clarity builds phenomenal team members.

Reflection (00:21:05)

Now, before we go any further, let me say this clearly. Don't beat yourself up if these patterns sound familiar.

Every one of these busyness, dependency, reactive pace, lack of clarity shows up in almost every business that comes to us for coaching. What matters most is not that these things are happening, it's that you finally notice them.

Awareness is the first step toward real leadership change. You can't fix what you don't see, but once you recognize where the breakdown is, you can start making simple, practical shifts that move you from constant doing to to leading with confidence and intention.

So don't get discouraged. This is where transformation starts. If you want 2026 to be different, it begins with stepping out of the weeds. Your team doesn't need a busier version of you.

They need a clearer version of you. Choose leadership over activity, choose leadership over hustle, and you'll soon see your influence rise immediately.

Action Items (00:22:14)

So here's some things you could do right now to actually start leading your team.

Number one, audit your last week and highlight every last full week.

Maybe you've been off on vacation or something. Don't audit that week. Actually be a great week to show you didn't do any leadership.

Audit your last week and highlight everything someone else could own. If you're doing too much and there's things that you should be getting off your plate because they're taking time of leadership, then how do we properly delegate those things?

Number two, choose one leadership priority. Clarity, Communication, delegation, decision making. Whatever it is, and commit to improving it in January.

Make the next few weeks that's left here something that you focus heavily on getting this done. Pick one of those topics and go ballistic.

Number three, have a 20 minute alignment conversation asking your top leader, where am I in slowing us down? And let them know, listen, this is a tough one.

If you've never done this, man, I've been doing this for decades. If you've never done this with a team member or a leader, you're gonna be a little fearful at first. Don't be.

Be somebody who accepts and embraces input from healthy people. Make sure it's not somebody who's looking to take a few shots at you.

If it's somebody you can trust, ask them, where do you see me slowing us down? How am I slowing our team down? And then listen to what they have to say. Don't be defensive. You know, listen to it. Process through it. Ask yourself, is this honest?

What should I do about it? And then put a plan together.

Next-Level Leadership LIVE Event 2026 (00:23:53)

So if you want to stop running on fumes and start leading with strategy and tension and real support, then join us at the Next-Level leadership LIVE Event for three days.

We'll help you build clarity, fix team dependency, and lead with confidence, not chaos. Launch pricing has passed, but you can still get your tickets with our Early Bird discount.

That's $200 off your ticket. So get your seat at chrislocurto.com/liveevents. That's chrislocurto.com/liveevents.

Well, folks, that's all the time that we have for you today. We appreciate you joining us in this new year. We hope that this is helpful.

We hope that you take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.