When Being Across Everything Felt Good
At first, it felt good. Being across everything. Anticipating problems before they surfaced. Stepping in before anything slipped.
You were the go-to - the one who had it handled. And for a while, it seemed to work.
But lately? It's different. You're tired. Your team is waiting on you. Your calendar feels like a blockade - not just for them, but for your own work too.
What once felt like competence now feels like constraint.
The Quiet Truth
You're not a bottleneck because you're not a good leader. You're a bottleneck because you're still leading like an individual contributor.
And that's not your fault. No one teaches you how to make the shift.
No one shows you how to move from:
- Doing the work, to designing how the work happens.
- Speed, to scale.
- Control, to clarity.
- Presence, to process.
The very strengths that made you successful early on - speed, precision, problem-solving - have become the things that now slow everything down.
What Being A Bottleneck Actually Means
Feeling like a bottleneck doesn't mean you've failed; it simply means you're being held back, and that you've outgrown the tools that once made you great.
It's the signal that leadership has taken a new shape; that those skills that got you here aren't the ones that will take you further.
This is the messy middle of growth: the moment when old ways of leading no longer work, and new ways haven't yet become second nature.
The Emotional Cost Of Being The Bottleneck
Beyond the logistics, there's an emotional weight to this.
- You feel guilty, knowing your team is waiting on you.
- You feel stretched, trying to be everywhere at once.
- You feel frustrated, because what used to feel like strength now feels like weakness.
But here's the reframe: this isn't weakness, it's a transition. And transitions are uncomfortable precisely because they mean growth is happening.
What Growth Looks Like From Here
Growth as a leader doesn't mean doing more; it means doing things differently.
- Shifting from owning tasks to enabling others to own them.
- Building processes that outlast your presence in the room.
- Creating clarity that frees people to act without waiting on you.
It's not about stepping back into irrelevance. It's about stepping forward into impact.
My Gentle Invitation
If you've been feeling like a bottleneck, pause before you label it a failure. It may be the clearest sign that you're ready for the next stage of leadership.
At Foresight, our coaching programs are designed for moments like this. Not to criticise, but to equip. To help leaders shift from speed to scale, from control to clarity, from being the bottleneck to building the flow.
Because growth doesn't start when you have it all figured out; it starts the moment you notice that what used to work isn't working anymore.
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