The most successful leaders in the room were also the ones most terrified of doing less.

I asked them one simple question, and the silence that followed told me everything.

“What if you had to create 20% more impact next quarter, without working harder?”

Then came the familiar defenses.

“Everything we do matters.”

“This is just how the role works.”

I’ve run leadership workshops across Fortune 500 companies for years.

That silence never changes, and it always points to the same tension.

So I gave them the real task: subtract, looking three quarters ahead.

→ Choose where to stop showing up.
→ Decide which decisions to move off your plate.
→ Identify the tasks you handle only because you’re good at them, not because they need you.

That’s when the real resistance surfaced.

Leaders avoid subtraction because it feels like losing relevance, losing control and losing a piece of who they are in the role.

I call this the expert’s curse.

“I can do this faster myself.”

“It’s easier if I just handle it.”

What once made you indispensable is now what keeps you busy. And busy leaders don’t scale.

As the exercise went on, something shifted in the room.

Leaders started to see the real cost. It wasn’t the cost of letting go. It was the cost of holding on.

Holding on feels safe today. It creates irrelevance tomorrow.

In my experience, most leaders can recover a full day every week just by subtracting low-value meetings, legacy responsibilities, and decisions they’ve long outgrown.

That time doesn’t disappear.

It gets reinvested into coaching their teams, thinking strategically, and focusing on the 20% of actions that drive 80% of the outcomes.

By the end, the room always lands on the same emotion: realization.

Three questions worth sitting with this week

→ What’s one thing you should stop doing this quarter?
→ What’s one decision you must delegate, even if it feels uncomfortable?
→ What would you do with one extra day every week?

Sometimes the bravest leadership move is the one you choose not to make.

What’s one thing you’ll subtract this quarter?

*** 

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