The Superpower Series, Week 4 of 8: The Rescuer
Last week was the Chief Decider, the founder the team brings its decisions to. This week is the founder who shows up when things go wrong.
Most of the time, a little too soon.
The Rescuer
A major customer gets upset.
A deadline slips.
A leader gets overwhelmed.
A project starts to wobble.
And in comes the founder.
You make the call, calm the customer, rework the plan, get everyone aligned, and drag the thing across the finish line. Again.
Everyone is relieved.
And everyone has just learned something.
When things get bad enough, the founder will save us.
A big project is two weeks behind. Your operations lead has a recovery plan. It’s decent. It’s slower than what you’d do.
By Wednesday you’re in her meeting, “just to help,” reworking the timeline. By Friday the project is back on track, and you’re the one running it.
She goes back to her other work. Nobody says anything. And next time a project slips, she’ll do the reasonable thing.
She’ll call you sooner.
It Looks Exactly Like Leadership
Rescuing is a particularly seductive trap, because it often looks exactly like leadership. Sometimes it actually is leadership.
That’s what makes it so hard to catch. Nobody complains. The customer’s happy. The team’s grateful. You go home tired and a little proud. Every signal you get says do it again.
But chronic rescuing steals the learning that comes from carrying a problem all the way through.
That’s where the learning lives. The stretch where it’s going badly and the team still owns it. Where they have to make a call without knowing if it’ll work, live with what happens, and figure out the next move.
Take that stretch away and what’s left is a job where people work on things until it gets hard, and then hand them off to you.
Nobody learns to get out of a mess they were never allowed to stay in.
“What Are You Going to Do?”
Your work is to develop the capacity to watch someone struggle without immediately taking over.
To coach instead of solve.
To let consequences teach.
To ask, “What are you going to do?” instead of jumping in with, “Here’s what I would do.”
With a customer upset and a deadline slipping, “What are you going to do?” can feel like the least responsible thing you could possibly say.
Most of the time it’s exactly the opposite.
Letting consequences teach doesn’t mean letting the building burn. Some fires really are yours. Most are just uncomfortable to watch.
So stay in the room, if you want. Ask questions. Say what you’re seeing. Then leave the problem where it was.
The irresponsible thing is building a company where only one person knows how to get out of trouble.
A Question for This Week
Think of the last time you stepped in to save something.
What would have happened if you hadn’t? Sure you can create a worst case. Don’t.
What’s the most likely result?
And the next time someone gets out of a mess without you, notice the first thing you feel. If it isn’t pure relief, that’s worth a look.
There are six other roles founders often end up having to let go of. To see them all, check out my post on Substack.
Next week: The Keeper of the Standard. Yes. No. Not quite. You know great when you see it. That’s exactly the problem.
— Jeff