Leading Leaders: LETTING GO OF THE WORK THAT MADE YOU
- Priya Venkatesan
- 11 hours ago
- 3 min read
A Senior VP I worked with, recently was frustrated with her leadership team.
"I've hired strong people. But I still end up in the details, reviewing their work, catching things they miss, course-correcting at the last minute. I shouldn't have to do this at my level."
She was right. She shouldn't.
The easy conclusion to her predicament is that her team isn't ready.
The harder question to ask is whether she's letting them be.
The Grip That Looks Like Diligence
Leaders who built careers on excellence don't suddenly become controlling when they reach senior leadership positions.
They become careful. They've seen what slipping standards cost. They've cleaned up the mess, others left behind. They've been the one who caught the thing everyone else missed.
So when they step into a role that requires letting go, they don't let go.
They call it governance. They call it quality assurance. They call it "staying connected."
What is lurking behind these could be a Fear of Failure/ Desire for perfectionism.
But grip it is.
And grip at a senior level has consequences nobody warns you about:
Your best people stop bringing their full thinking/intelligence to discussions. They learn to wait for you to shape it.
Your average people stay comfortable. Your presence covers gaps they never have to close.
Your own calendar fills with work that isn't yours — and the work that is yours never gets the space it needs.
The organisation won't flag this.
They'll praise your rigour. They'll escalate to you because it's faster.
They'll mistake your availability for leadership.
Until your highest performers start leaving. And your succession pipeline stays empty.
And the team that looks strong on paper cannot operate without you in the room.
The Grip vs. Readiness Matrix
Not all grip is wrong. And not all letting go is wise.
The real question is whether your proximity to the work matches your leaders' actual readiness to lead without you.
Abandonment: If both the leader's proximity to work and the directs readiness are low, it signals abandonment with no support. The leader needs to be in the arena till capability of the directs comes up. This is not just grip, this is being inside the game.
Necessary Grip: When directs move from Low, to high readiness, the leader's active presence to work, helps them to develop confidence and courage. This is a temporary halt for the leader till they scale.
Blocking: Senior leaders need to be weary of being closer to work when their directs are ready. This a real danger zone which prevents both the leaders and directs from growing to next higher roles.
Scaled Leadership: The Ideal, Utopia. The endeavour is for the leader and directs to land here.
An honest diagnosis of where you are will help you develop better agency in steering your ship.
Building measure of success around the below may go a long way to ensure you are not in the wrong intervention with the wrong people.
How well did my leaders perform, without me?
What decisions were made that I never had to see?
What capability exists now that didn't exist before I arrived?
The Real Work Now
Letting go is not stepping back. It is stepping into a different kind of leadership.
A leader's job now is to:
Set the standard: By being uncompromising about what excellence looks like and holding directs accountable.
Build judgment — By asking the questions that sharpen how your leaders think.
Create room — By protecting the space for your leaders to struggle, own, and grow
None of this shows up in a dashboard. None of it earns quick applause. And none of it feels as satisfying as being the one who fixed the problem.
But this is the work now.
Your legacy at this level will not be what you delivered. It will be who you built.
Reflections for a leader:
Where do you sit on the matrix?
If you're in Blocking, what would it take to release the grip?
If you're in Necessary Grip, what's your plan to move your leaders to readiness?
A big leap starts with the first movement forward. What would that be for you?
This is Part 1 of my Leading Leaders series — exploring what changes when your job is no longer the work, but the people who do it. Stay tuned for the next.
