Your business shouldn't need to be rescued every day.

There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being the answer to everything.

The staff calls you. The vendor calls you. The client asks for you by name. Every fire, eventually, reaches your desk.

It can feel like proof that you matter.

Necessary is not the same as effective

If every problem finds its way back to you, you may not have built leadership.

You may have built dependency.

Dependency is comfortable for a while. It keeps you close to everything. It confirms that nobody does it quite like you.

It also caps the company at your capacity. And your capacity has a limit, whether you admit it or not.

“Being needed can feel important. Until being needed becomes the thing preventing the company from growing.”

What rescue is really telling you

Daily rescue is information. It usually means one of three things:

• The standard was never clearly defined.
• The person closest to the problem isn't allowed to solve it.
• The process only exists in your head.

None of those are fixed by you working harder. They're fixed by you designing differently.

This week

Write down every problem that reached you. Next to each, write who should have been able to handle it, and what they were missing.

That list is your next system.