Episode #447 – What If You Let Them Take the Wheel?

This is episode 447 of the Brilliant Balance Podcast: “Let Them Take the Wheel.”

Okay, y’all, fair warning: this episode is dropping two days after my son walks across the graduation stage for his high school graduation. So cut me a little slack today, especially because I am not going to make you sit through a rehash of a commencement speech. You’re welcome for that.

Nor am I going to give you my own commencement thoughts in the form of an address. I thought about it, but that does not feel like the right approach for this particular episode.

But I have been sitting with something over these last few weeks as I’ve been parenting a senior, and I think it will resonate with you whether or not you have kids—honestly, whether your kids are four years old or 40 years old. I think this particular insight really applies to us whether we are leading teams, navigating relationships like marriages or friendships, or parenting, for that matter.

I think this pattern of behavior that I’m calling “taking the wheel” is really hardwired into those of us who are high performers and highly competent people.

I think highly competent people are rewarded early on in our lives for being able to get things done. And being able to get things done eventually grows into being able to solve problems, right? To do more complicated things, you have to solve problems, see around corners, and figure out solutions to things that aren’t obvious at first.

And that’s kind of a rush. It’s really fun to do that. And because we’re good at it—and we get thanked and rewarded for it—it starts spilling over. For me, it feels like, “Well, I’ll solve other people’s problems too. I’ll be so helpful.”

And that really is the pattern that I want to poke around in a little bit today because eventually we are, sometimes without even knowing it, trying to take the wheel for everyone else in ways that become less helpful.

For a long time, I just thought of this as a service that I was providing—sort of servant leadership. I thought this was what it looked like to be a good leader. You know that old story virtually all of us were told? If you grew up in the era I did—I’m Gen X, hardcore Gen X—I don’t even get to border millennials. That generation of leaders was raised on servant leadership.

And the classic story was, if the CEO wouldn’t stop to pick up a piece of trash in the hallway, leaving that for the janitor was considered abhorrent. You wanted every senior leader willing to do the job of anyone underneath them.

And there’s a place for that. It has merit to say, “Look, you’ve got to be willing to roll up your sleeves and do some stuff.” But I think it can get twisted a little bit and give us a license to do work that really is not ours to do, to make decisions that are not ours to make. And that actually can take the knees out from under people we are really trying to develop and grow.

So I think that’s what I want to dig into in this episode. Because we are the people who got to where we are by being someone who figures stuff out—who sees a problem, maps out a solution, and executes it, sometimes before anyone has even finished asking the question—that can go too far.

And when it goes too far, it can have costs, largely to the people around us and, in some cases, back to ourselves.

When you bring that same wiring into your personal life—when you take that almost over-capable nature into your personal life—you see someone struggling and your whole system activates because you already know the answer. You can see exactly what they should do. Everything in you wants to just do it for them.

And I mean that almost literally. If you have ever taught a teenager to drive, literally to drive a car, you know what I’m talking about. Our third child is learning to drive right now. She’ll have her license this summer.

So there is a moment when you are in the process of teaching—in fact, there are many moments, if I’m being honest—where your hands actually move to the wheel. You can’t help yourself. Or your foot instinctively goes for that invisible brake on the passenger side that isn’t there, but you wish it were in that moment.

Everything in your body is saying, “Let me do this,” because you are so sure they’re about to steer you off the road or into another vehicle. And I think it’s a great metaphor for the way we’re operating in the rest of our life.

When you think about being in the car teaching a child to drive, there are actually very few times where it is appropriate for you to reach over and grab the wheel. They do exist. If they really are going to steer off the road or they’re not paying attention, there is a time when you need to take the wheel.

But that is not when you know they’re going a route that you wouldn’t have chosen, but it will also get you there. You don’t take the wheel at that point. You don’t do it when the music is too loud. You don’t do it when you could get there faster. You only do it when it actually matters—when success or failure is at stake.

But not just because it’s easier for you or because you know how to do it. And I think that applies to all the other areas of our life where we metaphorically take the wheel.

That same kind of line in the sand of: “Is this a disaster that’s going to happen if I don’t intervene? Or is this a preference?” Am I being a control freak, or am I actually being helpful as the expert in the room?

That discernment—learning where the difference is, when it is appropriate for us to intervene or take the wheel and when it is not—is everything.

And I think when we don’t get good at that discernment, when we overuse that same approach and use it too often, we get ourselves into a lot of trouble. That’s what I want to get into today.

The first thing I want to talk about is where you might see yourself in this pattern. Once you see it, you’ll see it everywhere.

If you’re somebody who is prone to doing this, you will recognize this behavior in yourself in more than one area of your life.

And this is worth saying: you may not be the person who does this. You might be the person this gets done to. You might have a leader doing this to you, like a manager at work. You might have a spouse, partner, or good friend who is taking your wheel.

So you could listen to this episode through either lens.

I am generally the person taking the wheel, so I’m kind of talking to myself here and coaching myself through this.

One area where you might see it is at work. There could be someone on your team—probably someone who reports to you—whose job you know how to do.

I worked at Procter & Gamble for years, and it is a promote-from-within organization. So often you had done the job of the people you are now managing.

And that is a very dangerous place because you are good at it. You got promoted because you were good at it. And you have somebody reporting to you who has not done it as long and therefore probably hasn’t developed the same level of confidence.

So it is extremely tempting in a situation like that to say, “I’ll just do it. Give it to me. Get out of my way. I’ll handle it.”

Anytime we’re in a managerial relationship where we used to do that job, I think the tendency is the highest.

Where is it easier? If you are managing cross-functionally.

As a senior leader at P&G, you’re managing across peers—finance, product supply, product development. Those people could be reporting to you, but you may never have done those jobs. It’s less likely that you’re going to take the wheel in a situation like that.

If you go to work for a company in a different industry and you don’t have experience in that industry, it might be easier to restrain yourself.

But especially if you know how to do their job and you got promoted because of it, you’re going to be very tempted to do this.

And the problem is, the person who is in that actual role never gets to develop. They never get to hold the tension of solving a problem because you’re jumping in to solve it for them.

Now, there’s nuance here. Sometimes you want to model what excellence looks like. You want to show them what you can do. You want to get them out of a difficult situation or put a finishing touch on something. That’s different.

I’m talking more about jumping in and micromanaging the whole project or literally saying, “You know what? Never mind. I’ll just do it.”

That’s what we want to watch out for because the person in that role never gets a chance to grow their skills if you are jumping in and doing the hardest parts all the time.

And it has costs that really matter over time. Everyone will tolerate it once, but when it’s happening over and over again, it can become a really destructive pattern at work.

You might also see this happening in a relationship—your marriage or a partnership.

Think about how often we say, “They didn’t do it right.”

Classic example: loading the dishwasher. Everybody thinks their way of loading the dishwasher is the right way. My way is actually the right way—just kidding.

But everyone thinks their way is correct, and therefore anything different is wrong. And that’s where we’ll say, “Get out of the way. I’ll just do it.”

Think about all the things in your household that you have a particular way of doing because you think it gives the best result or is the most efficient. When you see somebody doing it differently, it’s so tempting to jump in and say, “You know what? I’ll just do it. Never mind.”

You dismiss them from the room.

That is an irritant to the relationship. It’s like a little pebble in their shoe. It’s frustrating to know that every time they try to do something, you’re going to come in and say, “Don’t do it that way.”

And what happens over time is they quit trying.

They’ll say, “You love the dishwasher. You’re the only one who knows how to do it.”

And that’s not what we really want because it creates another problem associated with this pattern: overload.

You are going to get overloaded. That work is going to come right back to you if you’re constantly jumping in and correcting somebody else’s way of doing things.

Because they’ll just hand it over, and then it’s your job forever.

And that is probably not ideal, especially when somewhere in your mind you know you trained them to do that. You created that situation, quite by accident.

If you see it at work and in your romantic relationship, you probably also see it in friendships or other peer-to-peer relationships.

You may be the person people come to when they want to talk about something going on in their life, and you immediately give them advice.

But they’re not really looking for your advice. They’re looking to talk about something difficult happening in their life.

People who are problem solvers see everything as a problem they’re ready to solve. It’s almost an addiction to solving the problem.

So if you have been given feedback by friends or family members saying, “I just need you to listen. I don’t need you to solve my problem,” and you are a highly capable person who is paid in your workplace to solve problems, it is very hard to turn that off.

It’s hard to put that capability in your pocket and say, “That’s not what’s needed right now.”

And if it shows up with friends, it’s probably showing up with your children too.

Are you good at staying in the proverbial passenger seat? Taking a more passive role and letting somebody else be in charge?

I’m speaking directly to the listeners who are wired like that today—or who are living with or working for someone who is.

Because I think we have empathy to develop on both sides, and we need language around this.

If you are the person constantly having the wheel taken from you, you want language for how to reset expectations.

Something as simple as: “Hey, I just need you to listen. I’ve got this.”

Or: “I don’t need a solution today. I just needed to talk about it.”

That kind of language can signal to someone wired more like me to stand down.

It helps shift into a different gear and actually takes pressure off because you don’t feel compelled to solve the problem. You get to be a supporter instead—someone who is along for the ride, offering support and companionship without taking over.

Because they’re not inviting you to take over.

Again, this could be in a relationship, at work, or in a parenting situation. If it shows up in one place for you, it’s probably going to show up everywhere.

So what is the cost of staying in this habit?

The first thing is that the people in the driver’s seat don’t get to grow.

They don’t get to build skills. They don’t get to learn how to get themselves out of situations. They don’t get to practice different approaches because you’re constantly taking over.

And none of us really want that.

We would say cognitively, “I want them to grow,” but our behavior sometimes indicates something totally different.

So if you are motivated by an altruistic lens, think about how this behavior is actually not good for them.

You’re going to have to stand down to give them a chance to build skills.

What’s the cost for you if you’re the one taking the wheel?

You’re going to get overloaded.

You are going to keep saying, “I’ve got it. I’ll handle it. I’ll take this one.” And then you’ll look down at your list and wonder where all your time went.

You’ve made it your job to do everybody else’s job because you think you’re being helpful, being a servant leader, increasing quality.

And at the end of the day, you’re just exhausted because you took on too much.

So we have to practice taking our hands off the wheel and saying, “I’m here for you if you need me. Ask me if you’re stuck. I’ll help.”

But not rushing in before we’ve even been invited.

A lot of you listening experience this all the time: “I have too much to do and not enough time to do it.”

But how much of that is actually your work?

And how much is because you haven’t yet learned how to let other people do their work while you do yours?

There’s also a relationship cost to this.

People stop feeling the desire to connect with us. They don’t want to tell us things because they know we’re going to try to solve the problem.

Maybe they’re not ready to solve it. Maybe they just want to think about it and let it unfold in their own way.

And then we erode connection.

Problem solvers are not always the people who experience the strongest connection.

If you are always thinking, “Every time my phone rings, somebody has a problem, and therefore I have to solve it,” ask yourself if that’s even true.

Maybe they just want to connect. They want to feel supported. They want to feel heard.

You don’t have to solve it.

And there’s one more cost I’ve just started thinking about as I put this episode together.

When you are always solving someone else’s problem—taking the wheel, intervening in everyone else’s life—guess what you probably never experience?

Support yourself.

If your default is, “Every interaction I’m in, I’m the one who’s supposed to handle it,” when do you ever get to be the person who is supported?

When do you get to receive guidance?

You can’t always be on that side of the equation.

You want to know what it feels like when somebody stays in the passenger seat for you. When you’re at the wheel in your own life and someone says, “I believe in you. I know you’ve got this.”

That’s where we learn it.

If the model you had growing up was someone always jumping in and solving problems for you, then you may think, “Well, now it’s my turn. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”

But it is deeply powerful to be supported by someone who says, “I know you can figure this out.”

“That was a great try. What do you think you learned from it? What would you do next time?”

That coaching approach is incredibly powerful.

That’s what I’m doing in the Coaching Circle. It’s not a place where we hand you answers. It’s a place where you are supported and given tools while you work to find your own answers.

My job is to believe in you, give you tools, and answer questions when you ask for help. But you do the driving.

You stay in the driver’s seat of your own life.

And I think that applies in all areas of life.

So I’ll leave you with this:

The most confident people in your life—the people who seem fully themselves, clear on where they’re going, and confident in their ability to solve problems—I bet they had someone in their corner who believed in them before they believed in themselves.

Someone who stayed in the car but didn’t grab the wheel.

Someone who let them learn how to solve problems and make decisions because ultimately that practice is what builds confident, capable people.

That’s what you want to be for the people in your life.

And that’s what you want to have for yourself.

You get to take your turn in the driver’s seat, and you get to take your turn in the passenger seat.

Go be that person for the people in your life, and then find it for yourself.

I will see you next week. Until next time, let’s be brilliant.