Ever feel like you’re stuck in “go faster, go faster, go faster” mode?
Your team’s running hot. You’re cranking out decisions. Everyone’s busy, moving fast, inboxes buzzing like a beehive.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: busyness isn’t speed. It’s chaos in motion.

I see this all the time in senior leaders. They crank up the urgency thinking they’re creating speed. In reality? They’re creating stress, confusion, and a team that can’t move without their constant green light.

It looks like speed. But it’s really babysitting at 100 miles an hour.

A few weeks ago, I worked with a client — let’s call her Dana — a VP at a high-growth tech company.
Her calendar was wall-to-wall: "one quick question", emergency meetings, chasing project updates.

“Everything feels urgent,” she told me. “But I don’t know why nothing’s actually moving.”

We unpacked her week.

She personally signed off on three marketing campaigns.
She approved hiring decisions for managers two levels down.
She jumped into two client escalations that her team “didn’t feel ready” to handle.

Dana was everywhere. And that was the problem.

She thought she was helping them to move fast.
What she was really teaching them?
Nothing moves until Dana says so.

So why do smart leaders fall into this trap?

Because in the moment, it feels right.
Jumping in feels faster.
Approving things feels safer.
Being everywhere feels like leadership.

But speed built on your personal involvement isn’t real speed — it’s dependency. It’s the organizational version of a sugar rush.

And there’s a cost.

Your team learns to wait for you.
You become the single point of failure.
And every “urgent” decision you make burns time you should be using to think strategically.

That’s not speed. That’s chaos with good intentions.

So what does real speed look like?

It’s not urgency. It’s clarity.

• Speed comes from clear outcomes — so people know what success looks like without running every step by you.
  

• Speed comes from trust — so decisions don’t pile up on your desk.
  

• Speed comes from systems — so approvals, handoffs, and workflows don’t get stuck in bottlenecks.
  

It’s counterintuitive, but true: when you slow down to define the rules, your team moves faster without you.

So how do you get there?

Try This:

1. Audit the approvals.
   This week, write down every approval you give. Hiring, budgets, projects, escalations — all of it.
   Now ask yourself: Which of these truly require me? You’ll be shocked how many don’t.
   
   

2. Define outcomes, not steps.
   When you assign work, don’t hand them a to-do list. Paint the finish line.
   Example: Instead of “Use this template for the client deck,” try “The goal is to land three new enterprise leads — how do you think we can make the pitch resonate?”
   
   

3. Ask for a friction report.
   Have your team list 1–2 places where approvals, unclear rules, or slow responses keep them from moving fast.
   These friction points are gold. They tell you exactly where you’re slowing them down.
   

When Dana ran this play, two things happened:

She saw that 70% of her approvals and "just one question" didn’t need her.
And her team — once they understood what “done” looked like — started solving problems without her constant check-ins.

The speed she wanted? It finally showed up.
Not because she was moving faster.
Because she stopped being the bottleneck.

Here’s the bigger shift:

If your team’s speed depends on you being everywhere, you don’t have speed. You have chaos management.

But if you build a team that can act without waiting for you?
That’s real velocity. Sustainable, scalable, and way less exhausting.

So here’s my challenge this week:

Audit your approvals.
Start painting finish lines instead of giving step-by-step instructions.
And ask your team what’s slowing them down — then fix it.

Because leadership isn’t about being the fastest firefighter.
It’s about building a team that doesn’t need you to fight every fire.

Want help making this shift?
Book a free Leadership Clarity Call.
In 45 minutes, we’ll uncover what’s slowing you down and design your next steps to build a team that moves faster — without you in the middle of every decision.