Every leader has the power to either enable or disable the people around them. That power shows up not in grand gestures, but in everyday moments. How we coach, how we respond, and how clearly we communicate.
During one of the coaching sessions with a CEO, I encountered this dilemma firsthand. A great personality, warm and smart, but a leadership style that was, unintentionally, slowing things down. Despite building a clear plan together, she constantly deviated, became distracted, and struggled to maintain direction. Her team, while talented, seemed stuck in limbo. Decisions were delayed. Responses were inconsistent. Clarity was missing. The result? Frustration and underperformance.
This experience forced me to examine a key question: as a leader, are you energising your people or exhausting them? Are you making their work easier, or harder?
Leadership is not just about having a title. It’s about how you show up in the day-to-day. And there are two practical traits that quickly reveal whether you’re enabling or disabling your team.
1. Responsiveness
One of the simplest, yet most overlooked, leadership behaviours is responsiveness. Many leaders say they’re too busy to respond to emails or messages. But if you’re too busy to communicate with your team, you’re too busy to lead.
Being responsive doesn’t mean dropping everything. It means knowing what deserves an immediate answer, what can wait, and what can be delegated. A good leader knows the difference. When someone reaches out to you, especially a team member, it’s because they need clarity or direction. Ignoring them delays momentum. It saps energy. And over time, it chips away at trust.
2. Clarity
The second is clarity. Without it, your team runs in circles. You may think you’re communicating enough, but if your messages are vague, too frequent, too scattered or too delayed, you're creating confusion instead of progress.
It’s not about how much you say. It’s about whether what you say lands. Clear communication means understanding your priorities before you speak, asking yourself what outcome you want, and ensuring your team has the same picture in their heads as you do in yours.
A great analogy came up during a recent interview session. The CEO insisted on a panel interview with multiple people. It sounds thorough, but with limited time and no structured question plan, it became shallow. One or two surface-level questions per person. No deep exploration. No real insight. Panel interviews can work, but only as one piece of a structured process. Without clarity and purpose, they’re just a performance.
So what do great leaders do differently?
They teach. They coach. They mentor. They facilitate. These are the four roles every leader must master. That means knowing when to offer direction, when to ask questions, when to develop others, and when to step back and let people find their way.
Every day is a choice. You can be the bottleneck, or you can be the enabler. You can scatter your focus, or you can decide which rabbit to chase first. Leadership starts with self-awareness, but it shows up in how you treat others. Ask yourself: do I help people move faster—or make them slow down?