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How do you know when to step away and when to step in?

I once watched a symphony conductor step away from the podium mid-performance. The orchestra continued playing beautifully, while he stood to the side, smiling. 

He hadn't abandoned his role. He'd fulfilled it. 

The musicians were at a point of maturity as an orchestra where they no longer needed his constant direction because he'd created something more valuable than his moment-by-moment leadership: a self-sustaining system where the performance carried on without his hands-on presence.

I love this as an illustration of how stepping away doesn’t have to mean abdication of leadership.

I’m currently coaching a CEO who’s a high-profile leader and well-regarded in his field. He’s keenly aware that he won’t be around forever, and mindful of the legacy he wants to leave. In essence, he wants to leave his organisation stronger than when he arrived.

As we were talking the other day, he said to me, “With my high profile, there’s a danger that I become the go-to guy for both my executive team and our stakeholders. I want to learn to become more ‘coach-like’ so I’m empowering others to step into leadership roles that I would usually take on.”

In my experience, this mindset is rare. And the constant pressures to stay as the ‘hero’ leader make living this idea pretty challenging.

‍The Inflection Point

Our culture adores heroes. Yet what sustains performance over time isn’t a hero. It’s a healthy, antifragile, interconnected system of people all playing their part, with nothing overly dependent on a single point of failure.

I think there’s an inflection point in your career when stepping away becomes the key leadership move. 

When I’m working with younger leaders, I’ll encourage them to step into the leadership vacuum, find their voice, and take the opportunity to make their mark. As they step in, the resulting confidence boost can shape their leadership identity: “I’m someone who takes the lead.” That mantra becomes their formula for success. 

Yet that formula, replicated at scale, can lead to unsustainable performance.

As we progress in our leadership journey, we get to a point where it’s less about stepping in and more about stepping away to leave space for others to fill the vacuum. That’s the inflection point.

Because if it’s all dependent on you to be the hero every time, what happens when you’re not around?

This is a core shift in leadership mindset: from hero to host.

When your identity is about being someone who takes the lead, it can be hard to let go. As one client said to me recently, “If I’m not fixing things, what value do I add as a leader?”

‍In a 2023 McKinsey report, the key message for thriving in uncertain times is that senior leaders need to move beyond command to collaboration, and beyond control to evolution. The old model of the heroic leader that we all look to, the one who has all the answers, simply doesn't work anymore. We need a shift from hero to host leadership.

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The Hero-to-Host Shift‍

Here are some shifts that great host leaders make:

• A hero takes the lead. A host gives the lead.
• A hero has the answers. A host creates the conditions for the answers to emerge.
• A hero loves problems to solve. A host loves building systems where problems get solved.
• A hero is driven by ego. A host focuses on ‘eco’: sustaining the ecosystem that delivers long-term outcomes.
• A hero keeps going. A host knows when to stop.

Practical Steps to Become a Host Leader

1. Ask, "Who’s doing the thinking?" Whoever thinks about the problem learns from it.
2. Create psychological safety for team members to step up without fear of failure.
3. Make yourself deliberately unavailable for certain decisions to create space for others.
4. Celebrate when your team solves problems without your intervention.

This week, identify one decision or meeting where you could practice being more 'host-like' and less 'hero-like'. What would that look like?"

‍Create the Space

Your most powerful legacy isn't what you build, but who you build. By hosting rather than hero-ing, you create a sustainable ecosystem of leadership that outlasts your tenure and becomes your true lasting impact.

Where could you allow others to fill the space that you’re currently filling?

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If you’d like to develop the skillsets and mindset to be more of a host leader, here’s how I can help:

1. Leadership Coaching: For the remainder of 2025, I’m currently offering a handful of 1:1 coaching slots for executives and senior leaders. Get in touch for a chat.
2. Masterclass: Mastering Facilitative Leadership. This one-day workshop helps senior leaders and professionals build the skills and tools to be more ‘host-like’ in their leadership. Get in touch to talk about me running this workshop for your leaders.
3. Plan on a Page: A powerful tool to use when you’re bringing people together to help be more ‘host’ and less ‘hero’ in the role you play. Download here.

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