We’ve all seen it. The brilliant engineer or analyst gets promoted. 3 months later, project velocity tanks.
Why? Because that brilliant individual has become a Single Point of Failure (SPOF).
It’s not laziness. It’s actually the opposite. They care so much about the quality that they become the funnel for every decision.
They hoard information (unintentionally). They become the “Hero” who works 60 hours while the team works 40. They create a bus factor of 1.
Great individual contributors thrive on Personal Mastery. Great leaders thrive on Collective Mastery.
The gap between the two isn’t magic. It’s mechanics. It’s teaching a technical expert the specific scripts for delegation and feedback so they can clear the lane.
Stop letting your best experts become your biggest bottlenecks.
Question: Have you ever seen a “High Potential” leader burn out because they couldn’t let go of the technical details?