Many leaders and professionals will recognize this: you notice what is being left undone, step in, and make sure it gets done. That can work for a long time. Until more and more lands on your shoulders and you barely have room for your own work.

I experienced this myself as a project manager. People appreciated that I always found a way to get things done. But it also meant long days, stress, and the feeling that I was on my own. Just because I could pick something up did not mean it was mine to carry.

An important moment came when I decided to step away from an assignment. It did not solve everything, but I stopped pushing ahead at my own expense.

I bring that experience to my work as an independent sparring partner. When someone is carrying more and more, we explore what is happening: what belongs to their role, what they are taking on for others, and which agreements or circumstances keep that pattern going. From there, it becomes clearer what they can change themselves and what needs to be discussed within the team or organization.

Challenge
A skilled and experienced team found itself stuck. Team members knew their work well, but were constantly slowed down by mandatory calls, overlapping roles (a team lead and an additional coordinator), and continuous monitoring. The coordinator often listened in on conversations and hovered over colleagues’ shoulders. For the team, this felt like a lack of trust, creating nervousness, frustration, and a loss of motivation. The team lead perceived the setup as efficient, tasks seemed to be taken out of their hands, but in reality, it drained the team’s energy and reduced their sense of ownership.

Approach

• Restoring trust: making it explicit that team members could handle their responsibilities without constant oversight.

• Clarifying roles: creating a clear distinction between leading, coordinating, and executing to prevent duplication and micromanagement.

• Reducing meeting load: replacing endless mandatory calls with short, purposeful check-ins that actually added value.

• Enhancing autonomy: giving people the space to take ownership, with support available only when needed.

• Facilitating open dialogue: creating room to express how control was experienced and how trust could be rebuilt.

Result

• Team members felt heard and regained autonomy in their work.

• Meeting pressure was drastically reduced, increasing productivity.

• Trust was restored within the team, leading to a better atmosphere and stronger collaboration.

• The team lead learned that letting go produced far better results than strict control.

Situation
A large organization was in the midst of an extensive ERP transformation project. Deadlines were tightly set, but implementation was falling behind. Pressure from senior management was increasing, while the business was beginning to lose confidence in the project.

Challenge
The project risked stalling due to:

• An unrealistic deadline that had to be met at all costs.

• Employees being assigned to multiple projects simultaneously, leading to overload.

• Apathy across the organization after previous difficult transitions.

• Lack of structure and connection between different layers of the organization.

Approach & Insight
With a pragmatic and collaborative approach, I brought clarity to the situation:

• Made bottlenecks and risks concrete and transparent for the steering committee.

• Connected the voice of the business with the ambitions of management.

• Provided hands-on support where needed to create progress and restore momentum.

• Set clear boundaries when pressure and expectations became unrealistic.

Result & Lessons

• There was appreciation for the openness and the way complexity was made transparent.

• Both successes and problems could be addressed openly, creating more realism.

• For myself, this was a turning point: my strength lies in bringing clarity and connection, not in pushing or pulling. This led to the insight that my role is better suited as an independent advisor and sparring partner, rather than as a classic project manager.

A small consultancy used development plans and annual performance reviews. In practice, these conversations caused employees anxiety. They often centered on judgments about one another, while employees felt there was little room to discuss what they needed to do their work well.

What this experience taught me

A development plan or performance review can be valuable. But a format alone does not make a conversation useful. It matters whether people understand how they are being assessed, whether expectations have been made explicit, and whether there is room to ask questions or disagree.

That is why I look at both the conversation and the conditions around it. What is the process meant to achieve? What actually happens in practice? And what needs to change to make the conversation useful again for both the employee and the organization?