355. When Being Exceptional Starts Holding You Back
You’re smart. You’re talented. I’m sure everything you touch turns to gold. That’s the problem.
This is The Best Leadership Newsletter Ever. Learn the patterns that are holding you back - in 5 laugh-out-loud minutes a weekHigh-performing leaders don’t struggle because they’re bad at leadership.
They struggle because they’re too good at execution.
Are you a high performing leader? Let’s check.
Do you rewrite other’s emails or rework decks and justify it as “just helping them”?
Does your team wait to get your nod of approval before making any decisions?
Does constructive feedback make you defensive?
If any of these resonate, you’re probably a high performing leader. And that’s the problem.
Let me explain.
The Exceptional Worker
Maybe you were an exceptional worker. You were productive, responsible and reliable. You probably took pride in your exceptionalism.
I don’t blame you. You should do that.
I was just like you.
I was an exceptional worker. I loved it. I took pride in knowing they’d need to hire three people to replace me.
I was 27 when I got promoted to my first leadership role. I got promoted because I was an exceptional worker and gosh darn it if I wasn’t going to be a superstar leader too.
But that didn’t work out exactly as planned.
When I took that leadership role, I worked my butt off. I spent my days putting out fires and my nights doing the work I knew I could do faster and better than anyone else.
Yes, I had people reporting to me, but I didn’t want to overload them with more work. And, if I’m being honest (which I am) I thought I was better at their jobs anyway.
Remember, I was exceptional.
So why were my employees unhappy? Why didn’t they hold themselves accountable like me?
It’s because the very thing that made me successful was the very thing that held me back. And it might be the same with you.
You’re smart. You’re talented. I’m sure everything you touch turns to gold.
And that’s the problem.
Which reminds me, we should probably talk about King Midas for a minute. There’s a darn good analogy waiting to be told.
The King Midas Problem
One day, back around 700 BCE, King Midas did a solid for a buddy of the god Dionysus. As a thank you, Dionysus granted King Midas one wish.
Midas wanted more wealth and power, so he wished that everything he touched turned to gold.
At first it felt like a miracle. He touched a tree, it turned to gold. Stones, furniture… all gold. He felt like he had unlimited wealth and power.
Then he tried to eat. His food turned to gold. His wine turned to gold. And when he touched his daughter, she turned into a gold statue.
What he thought was a gift, was really a curse.
Desperate, Midas begged to reverse it. Dionysus told him to wash himself in the river. He did that and - ba-da-boom! - the golden touch was gone.
The irony of the story is that Midas wanted wealth and power, but he didn’t really get it until he let go of his golden touch.
When you need everything you touch to turn to gold, it will end up destroying you and the people around you.
That’s exactly what happens when exceptional performers become leaders and never let go of their golden touch.
You Already Have the Midas Touch
If you’re a high-performing leader, you already have the Midas Touch.
That’s your problem.
For exceptional performers, their identity is based on the belief that if they don’t touch it, it won’t be great.
This is an unhealthy pattern that will continue to obstruct your career. Unless you change that pattern, your growth will stall like the 16 year-old me learning to drive a stick shift.
The Exceptional Leader Trap
Most high-performing leaders get stuck at this stage. I see it all the time with my leadership coaching clients. They finally recognize their behavior is a problem, but they don’t own the identity pattern underneath it.
They say things like, “I just need to delegate better” or “I really should trust my team more” - and they’re right.
But they are addressing the problem in the wrong way.
They know the behaviors that need to change, but those behaviors aren’t the problem, they’re just the symptom. The real problem is that identity they’re grasping onto with white-knuckled abandon
And that sucks.
Why Your Team Is Stuck (Even Though You’re Clearly Awesome)
When you hold onto your exceptional golden touch, your team will not excel. In fact, you’ll actually be holding them back.
Every time you rewrite an email or rework a deck, you’re telling them their work isn’t good enough.
When your team needs to get your ok for every decision, you’re telling them that they don’t have any authority or empowerment.
If you always give answers instead of asking questions, you’re only teaching your team to be compliant, not creative.
Eventually people will stop trying - not because they’re incapable of being great, but because you trained them to stop caring.
The Real Leadership Transformation
You don’t need to become a better version of the leader you are. You need to become a different kind of leader altogether.
You need to break the behavioral pattern holding you back and learn that your value no longer comes from your golden touch, it comes from transformation. Transforming not just you, but others.
The leaders who succeed the most are the ones that understand they repeat the same mistakes, and then they break the pattern - they stop measuring their worth by what they create, and start measuring it by how they transform other people’s growth.
This is the post-river Midas.
The great leader is the one who no longer needs to turn things into gold with their own hands, because they’ve learned how to turn other people into gold miners.
What Changes When You Let Go of the Golden Touch
When leaders are able to let go of their high-performing identity and break the pattern of being an exceptional worker, you’d be amazed at what happens:
Decisions are made faster
People grow because they feel empowered
Innovation increases because there’s more psychological safety
The leaders workload drops and they can exhale
And guess what else happens… Results actually get better.
It happens all the time with my executive coaching clients.
In fact, I’ve never had a single client who had their revenue drop after working with me.
When the exceptional leaders stop trying to be the hero, they learn to nurture the hero in others.
That’s when the winning happens.
The Question That Changes Everything
Leadership isn’t about being exceptional forever. It’s about recognizing the patterns holding you back, understanding why they are there, and then working beyond them.
If you’re interested in understanding the behavioral patterns holding you back, I’m running a 90 minute workshop that will help you identify the hidden patterns that are haunting you.
You will have a whole bunch of “holy s%$t, that’s me!” moments.
Sign up now on the waitlist for a chance to get into the next group at a discounted price. It will transform your life.
I run guided workshops where leaders make sense of why leadership feels harder — and how they can make it easier.
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Excellence at execution becomes the "trap".
You're so good at doing that you forget how to lead.
Thanks for your post! 🙏