What Your Holiday Can Teach You About Your Leadership
There is something wonderfully revealing about going on holiday.
You leave the office. You put your laptop away. You try not to check your phone.
And suddenly, you discover something you may not have noticed during the rest of the year.
The world continues without you.
The meeting happens.
The client gets an answer.
Someone makes a decision.
The team solves a problem.
And, surprisingly, everything doesn’t fall apart.
For many leaders, this can be uncomfortable.
Because being needed can feel like being valuable.
But they are not the same thing.
Over the years, coaching leaders and executive teams globally, I’ve seen a recurring pattern. Highly capable leaders often become the central point for too many decisions, too many approvals and too many problems.
People come to them because they’re experienced.
They respond because they’re responsible.
And gradually, without meaning to, they become the bottleneck.
The irony?
They may believe they’re demonstrating strong leadership.
But they may actually be preventing their people from developing it.
A holiday can expose this beautifully.
When you’re not available, what happens?
Does your team confidently make decisions?
Do they solve problems without waiting for you?
Do they know what matters most?
Do they feel empowered to use their judgement?
Or does everything stop until you return?
There is no judgement in the answer.
It’s information.
And information is incredibly valuable to a leader.
If everything continues smoothly while you’re away, celebrate that. It means you’ve created capability and trust.
If everything becomes chaotic, don’t immediately blame the team.
Ask yourself what you may have inadvertently created.
Perhaps you’ve trained people to ask rather than think.
Perhaps you’ve made yourself the final decision-maker for too many things.
Perhaps you’ve been rescuing people from problems they needed to learn to solve themselves.
This is where leadership gets interesting.
Your job isn’t to make yourself indispensable.
Your job is to develop people who can think, decide and lead without needing you in every room.
So while you’re lying on the beach, sitting on a mountain, exploring a new city or simply enjoying a slower morning, consider this question:
What would my team be capable of if I stopped solving the problems they are capable of solving themselves?
You may come back from your holiday with more than a tan.
You may come back with a completely different understanding of your leadership.
And perhaps that’s one of the greatest gifts you can give your team:
the opportunity to discover what they’re capable of without you.
To your success,
Isabel
Which inisght has impacted you the most? Drop it in the comments!
Isabel Valle is an award-winning Global Leadership Strategist and ICF Master Coach, dedicated to helping executives and business leaders achieve sustainable success. Through her acclaimed programs like Leadership Reimagined and Lead365, Isabel equips leaders with the tools to foster innovation, build high-performing teams, and thrive in a fast-evolving world. A sought-after speaker and author, Isabel blends data-driven insights with a human-centered approach to deliver transformative results. Learn more at www.isabelvalle.com.