When Leaders Over-Function, Everyone Loses

Over-functioning in leadership is often misunderstood.

It’s rarely about control.
It’s rarely about ego.

More often, it’s about leaders absorbing uncertainty so others don’t have to.

When systems are ambiguous, when roles blur, when expectations aren’t clear, leaders step in. They decide faster. Carry more. Smooth over confusion. They become the answer.

At first, this looks like competence.

Over time, it creates hidden costs:

• Leaders burn energy compensating for structural uncertainty

• Teams stop thinking independently

• Peer dialogue collapses

• Authority concentrates instead of distributing

Perhaps most damaging, leaders stop having conversations.

When you feel responsible for certainty, you don’t talk things through — you perform answers.

And leadership becomes heavier than it needs to be.

The question isn’t how leaders can do more.

It’s whether leadership cultures can make room for thinking out loud again.