What happens when you give your team complete freedom to do their work—and they still aren't moving forward?
In this solo episode of The Joy CEO Podcast, I explore a leadership mistake I made myself: assuming that being a good leader meant staying out of my team's way.
I was leading a team whose work I had never personally done, so I thought the best thing I could do was give them autonomy and stay hands-off. What I eventually discovered was that I wasn't protecting them from the things that were making their jobs harder—broken processes, redundant requests, unnecessary internal noise, and unclear ownership.
Once I walked through their workflow from beginning to end, I could see where my leadership was missing. My job wasn't to do their work. It was to create the conditions for them to do their work well.
That shift ultimately freed up roughly 10 hours a week for my team.
In this episode, I introduce the idea of right-sized leadership and revisit my Hula Hoop Principle: knowing what belongs inside your leadership responsibility, what belongs with your team, and where you've accidentally stepped too far in—or too far out.
If you've ever wondered why your team isn't stepping up, this episode may give you a different question to ask.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
Your Team May Not Need More Accountability—They May Need Better Leadership
When a team isn't stepping up, our first instinct can be to assume they need more direction, more accountability, or more oversight.
But sometimes the problem isn't the team.
Lori shares how being too hands-off meant she wasn't seeing the obstacles that were slowing her team down. Leadership isn't about constantly checking on people. It's about understanding enough of their world to remove the barriers that keep them from succeeding.
Micromanagement Isn't the Only Leadership Problem
We often talk about micromanagement as if the opposite—leaving people completely alone—is automatically good leadership.
It isn't.
Overleading and underleading can create the same result: confusion, frustration, and a team that doesn't know what belongs to whom.
The goal isn't to be more involved or less involved.
It's to be involved in the right places.
Walk the Workflow Before You Assume You Understand It
Lori realized that she couldn't effectively protect her team from problems she couldn't see.
So she walked through their entire end-to-end workflow.
That revealed broken processes, duplicated requests, unnecessary internal noise, and places where her team was spending time on things that weren't actually adding value.
Sometimes leadership starts with curiosity rather than answers.
Your Job Isn't to Do Their Work—It's to Protect Their Ability to Do It
As leaders, we don't need to become experts in every task our teams perform.
But we do need to understand enough to identify what gets in their way.
Lori's role wasn't to step into her team's work. It was to remove distractions, clarify ownership, protect their time, and make sure the right work was happening at the right level.
That distinction helped free up around 10 hours a week for her team.
Use the Hula Hoop to Clarify Ownership
Lori returns to one of her favorite leadership metaphors: the Hula Hoop Principle.
Think about your leadership responsibilities as one hula hoop and your team's responsibilities as another.
Your job isn't to jump into their hula hoop every time something gets difficult. And their job isn't to carry everything that belongs inside yours.
Healthy leadership requires knowing where your responsibility begins and ends.
Find Your Right-Sized Leadership
The best leadership isn't about choosing between being hands-on and hands-off.
It's about being right-sized.
Sometimes your team needs you to step in. Sometimes they need you to step back. Sometimes they need you to ask a question instead of giving an answer.
The leadership skill is knowing which one is required in the moment.
Pause Long Enough to Let Them Lead
One of the hardest things for capable leaders is resisting the urge to solve the problem themselves.
Lori encourages leaders to pause, get curious, and ask questions before jumping in with the answer.
Sometimes the most powerful leadership move isn't giving someone the solution.
It's giving them the space to find it.
🔎 Mentioned in the Episode:
- Lori's experience leading a team doing work she had never personally done.
- The danger of confusing hands-off leadership with effective delegation.
- Broken processes and redundant requests that created unnecessary workload.
- How Lori's team gained back roughly 10 hours a week.
- The Hula Hoop Principle and defining leadership responsibility.
- The difference between overleading and underleading.
- The concept of right-sized leadership.
- Using curiosity and questions instead of immediately providing solutions.
- Lori's Hudson Valley retreat and the importance of creating space for leadership reflection.
✨ Reflection Prompts:
- Where might your team be struggling because you're too far away from the work?
- Where are you stepping into your team's hula hoop instead of letting them own it?
- What processes, requests, or distractions are making your team's work harder than it needs to be?
- Are you overleading, underleading, or leading at the right size?
- What would change if you asked a question before giving an answer?
- What could you remove or protect so your team can spend more time doing the work that matters?
- Where does your team need more autonomy—and where do they actually need more leadership?
🧠 Who This Episode Is For:
- Executives and senior leaders managing high-performing teams.
- Founders and business owners who want their teams to take more ownership.
- Leaders who worry they are micromanaging.
- Leaders who have swung so far toward autonomy that they have become too hands-off.
- Managers struggling with delegation and accountability.
- High-achieving women who are used to solving problems themselves.
- Anyone who wants to become a more intentional, effective, and right-sized leader.
📩 Want to Go Deeper?
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