To begin our Hidden Load of Leadership series, we’re exploring the invisible pressures that come with leading, especially for those doing big things with limited support. Many of the leaders we work with are carrying more than their roles account for. They’re moving fast, stretching thin, and holding things no one else sees.

This series is meant to slow that down. Each post offers a reflection and a small shift that might make your work more sustainable starting with the trap of doing it all.‍‍
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When Capability Becomes a Weight

Whether you’re a solo founder, leading a small scrappy team, or carrying a big title at a larger organization, chances are you’ve found yourself doing more than feels manageable.

You might be the only one who knows how. Or the one who sees what’s falling through the cracks. Or simply the only person available to take on what leadership demands because there’s no one else. So, you pick it up. Again. And again.

At first, it feels like you’re being helpful or efficient. But over time, this quiet over-functioning becomes something else entirely. It turns into a pattern. And that pattern can start to cost you.

I’ve felt this, too. In previous roles as a Chief of Staff, it was easy to feel like I was responsible for everyone’s success. I took on extra work to support my colleagues in any way I could: proofing decks, managing timelines, anticipating needs before they were voiced. I told myself I was being helpful. And in many ways, I was. But I was also quietly burning out. The more I carried, the more invisible it became. And the harder it was to see what was mine to hold and what wasn’t.
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The Cost of Over-Functioning

Doing everything isn’t a sign that something’s wrong with you. Often, it’s a sign that something’s missing from your system.

We call this role creep, which is when your job silently expands to include every gap, every decision, every unspoken responsibility. And because it’s unspoken, no one pauses to realign expectations... Only your energy adjusts.

We see this all the time: leaders internalizing the gap and filling it themselves because it’s faster. Or it feels like there’s no one else. Or because asking for help is hard especially when help feels uncertain, expensive, or completely outside the realm of possibility for a small team.

But the truth is, when survival mode becomes your default, it begins to eat away at the parts of leadership that matter most: reflection, creativity, clarity, and spaciousness.‍

You become the backstop. You become the system. And when everything depends on your time, your energy, and your ability to stretch one more inch…the cost starts to show up everywhere else.

Sometimes that cost is burnout.

Sometimes it’s a bottleneck your team can’t name.

Sometimes it’s the feeling that your work is growing, but you’re shrinking inside of it.
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A Small Step Toward Something Different

There is nothing wrong with being the person who can hold a lot. But that doesn’t mean you should be holding all of it. You can’t delegate or restructure what you haven’t named.

As a first practice, take ten minutes this week to write down what you’re holding - big or small, visible or invisible. This is something we often do with our partners in the early stages of working together. It helps surface what’s quietly accumulated and creates space for clearer boundaries, smarter delegation, and more sustainable leadership. Not to fix it. Just to see it.

Next week, we’ll walk through a simple tool to help you understand where your time is really going and what it might be trying to tell you.
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