Maximize Your Scope, Decentralize Your Power: The Leadership Work We Must Do Within

Truth is: "Too many of us are doing everything, except the things only we can do. We’re showing up everywhere, except where we’re most needed. We’re holding it all until it breaks us."

-Dr. Batts

Leadership demands more than strategy. It demands soul work. If you’re not asking yourself hard questions, you’re not growing, you’re maintaining. And most of us weren’t called to maintain. We were called to build, expand, and transform.

Here’s the hard question every leader must wrestle with: What are the tasks, spaces, and projects that only I can focus on?

If your list is long, you’re likely micromanaging, not leading. Many of us, especially leaders of color, especially those with lived experience, fall into savior or martyr leadership. We’ve been taught to be everything for everyone. We’ve been rewarded for survival, for being “the only one who can get it done.” We often confuse control with care. But martyrdom is not a management strategy. It’s an unspoken trauma response.

The Real Work? It’s Internal.

To truly shift our leadership, we have to confront some uncomfortable truths:

• What’s my relationship with power?

• What’s my relationship with money?

• How does fear shape my decisions?

• What would I do if I weren’t afraid?

• Who do I trust, and who do I trust to do more?

• When was the last time I gave someone a chance to lead a major project for the first time?

Because when we’re honest, a lot of our decisions aren’t about strategy, they’re about fear.

Fear of being replaced.

Fear of being irrelevant.

Fear of failure.

Fear of what it means when someone we mentored fails in front of others.

But what does it say about us when our people fail? That we’re bad leaders? Or that we’re brave enough to let them try?

Leadership Is Risk. Period.

Yes, there’s nuance. Yes, there’s risk. And yes, I recognize that as a man, I carry privilege that allows me to fail forward, to jump without a net, to be relentless without being labeled emotional or unstable. But not everyone on our teams has that same margin for error. So we have to lead with that reality in mind. Still, courageous leadership means we don’t let that complexity become an excuse. It becomes a compass.

As a Black man, I ask myself:

• What does courageous leadership look like in this skin, in this moment, in this role?

• How does imposter syndrome, fueled by white supremacy, show up in my hesitation to delegate, to share power, to step back?

• Am I leading with legacy, or am I leading to survive?

I’ll never forget an HR consultant’s feedback on an organization I once led:“The greatest threat to this organization is a single point of failure, you. If you crashed your car on the way home, this $2.5M operation would collapse.”

That stung. But it was the medicine I needed. It pushed me to decentralize leadership, create a living succession plan, and reimagine power, not as something I hold, but something I multiply.

Build the Bench. Share the Power.

When I coach executive leaders, we don’t just talk outcomes, we talk infrastructure. We ask:

• Who’s on your bench, and how are you developing them?

• Who’s cross-trained?

• What does your succession plan look like?

• How are you preparing the soil for the next season?

Because yes, it may feel good to be the go-to. But you were never meant to be the only one who could. Build an executive team. Not one based on degrees, titles, or hierarchy, but on skill, passion, lived experience, and commitment. And then get out of their way.

Final truth: When you hoard knowledge, power, relationships, and resources, you don’t look like a strong leader. You look like a scared one. You’re not securing your legacy, you’re suffocating it.

So ask yourself:

What if the true measure of my leadership is not what I do, but what I leave behind?

It’s time to lead differently. Courageously. Radically. Relationally. It’s time to stop managing everything, and start multiplying impact.

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