Keep Caring, Stop Carrying

The pressure to win, the fear of losing your job, the expectations of fans and bosses—these are real, but they are rarely the heaviest weight a leader carries.

No. The weight that feels suffocating, the burden that paralyzes even the most transformational of leaders, is a mix of care and misapplied responsibility.

I measure it this way:

The Weight of Leadership= Deep Care X Personal Responsibility

The Cost of Deep Care

The best leaders care deeply for their people as people, not just for the results they produce. They are the ones who see human potential, not just human capital. They get to know their people’s families, their dreams, and build relationships where struggles are shared and victories are celebrated.

This means when tragedy strikes, when they experience setbacks, or when they fall short of the potential we see in them—we feel that deeply. 

If this were the only weight of leadership, the logical solution would be to care less. But we cannot, and should not, solve this problem by becoming apathetic.

The Multiplier Effect

The weight becomes suffocating because we add a multiplier: the belief that we are personally responsible for an individual’s choices and outcomes.

This is the Messiah Complex—the dangerous belief that we can and must "save" everyone on our team.

This is what caused an elite coach I support to break down recently. A player was becoming cancerous within the team. The coach's deep care for the athlete, who came from a difficult background, was compounded by an overwhelming fear of holding him accountable. He didn’t want to lose him. His sense of responsibility for the player's choices resulted in paralyzing inaction, leading him to drop the standard.

The Distinction That Frees You

We cannot save everyone. The burden is lifted when we realize the necessary distinction:

As a leader, you have a responsibility TO your people, not a responsibility FOR your people.

Your job is to create the conditions—the environment, the high standards, and the relationships—for good things to happen.

When tragedy strikes, we will always feel that pain because of how deeply we care. There is no changing that.

But when our people make poor decisions, lack preparation, or display the wrong attitude, the resulting pain becomes overwhelming only when we confuse our responsibility to them with responsibility for them.

The burden of leadership is lifted when we realize the truth: Our job is to create the conditions within the environment, but the ultimate outcome and the final choice remain in their hands. You don't have to care less; you just have to stop taking responsibility for what is not yours to carry. 

Keep caring for your people. Stop trying to carry your people.