Have you ever felt like you’re doing all the work, solving all the problems, and carrying the weight of improvement efforts on your shoulders—while others sit back and watch?
You might be caught in the Doer Trap.
The Doer Trap happens when you take on too much responsibility, instead of enabling others to step up and lead. It’s when leaders, managers, operational excellence practitioners and lean consultants get stuck doing the work rather than building capability within their teams.
Why does this happen?
We’re rewarded for having the answers—in school, early in our careers and even in leadership.
A sense of urgency makes it easier to do the work ourselves, rather than guide others through it.
Many organizations are under-resourced, pushing operational excellence practitioners into a "pair-of-hands" role instead of a strategic one.
Leaders are overloaded and burnt out—feeling like they’re the only ones who can make things happen, building to a vicious cycle of exhaustion and frustration, so that they don’t have time to develop others to take on the work.
But here’s the challenge: If you’re always the one solving the problems, nothing truly changes.
If you're a continuous improvement coach or a team leader, the linchpin in creating a sustainable, high-performing organization isn't about you—the one personally getting the results—doing it all. It's about also supporting the leaders and the people around you owning the doing, and supporting their progress towards the results.
It’s about shifting from being the expert problem-solver to the enabler of problem-solving across your organization.
When you step into “doer” mode for something that is not actually your problem, project or responsibility, you are taking away ownership from the other person. If you really want to create a continuous improvement, high-performing culture, and you're doing all the doing, you are standing in the way of the very outcome you want.
And what's the impact?
You might be solving a problem in the short run, but actually creating more and bigger problems.
There are missed learning and capability opportunities, so people are always coming back to you for the answer. You might get a short-term result, but you find yourself and your organization working on the same problem year after year because the fix isn’t sustained.
Five Roles That Hold You Back from Leading Change
If you find yourself constantly "doing" instead of leading, you might be stuck in one of these five Doer Trap roles:
The Hero: The Hero rushes in to save the day. But not every problem needs your answer. When you treat everything like a five-alarm fire, you train others to depend on you—and keep yourself stuck in crisis mode. It’s about your ego and the reward of firefighting.
The Rescuer: You hate seeing people struggle—so you jump in with the answer. It feels helpful, but it takes away the learning opportunity. The urge to rescue is human, but real leadership means getting more comfortable with the discomfort of learning.
The Magician: It looks like others are doing the work—but behind the scenes, you’re shaping the outcomes, making the process look smooth, which takes away true ownership. This trap is sneaky because it feels efficient—especially for CI practitioners trying to move fast and get results—but when you do the thinking for others, you rob them of the chance to grow.
The Pair of Hands: You’re not leading the work—you’re just doing it. Whether it’s because it’s “faster if I just do it myself” or because leaders expect you to be the taskmaster, you find yourself stuck in execution mode. The risk? Your potential to lead real transformation gets buried under to-do lists.
The Surrogate Leader: You’re not just doing tasks—you’re doing the leading, too. Setting direction, chasing follow-ups, driving accountability—but it’s not actually your role. When leaders abdicate responsibility, it’s easy (and tempting) to step in and take over. But here’s the problem: it creates the illusion of progress without true ownership or sustainability.
Which role do you find yourself getting stuck in the most?
Breaking Free: Shifting from Doer to Transformational Change Leader
How do you break free of the Doer Trap so that you can create sustainable change and step into your full leadership potential?
If you’ve found yourself stuck in the Doer Trap—or you want to avoid falling into it altogether—here are three shifts that can make an immediate difference in how you lead and support others. (You can hear more about these shifts—and examples of how other leaders and change practitioners have applied them—in the Chain of Learning podcast.)
1. Get clear on your role (and theirs)
Start with clarity.
Know your role. Know who owns the doing. Who owns the “what” (the doing) and who owns the “how” (creating the conditions for the work or thinking to process).
This doesn’t mean you don’t have responsibilities for getting work done—it means understanding what’s yours to own and what belongs to others.
Remember, your influence doesn’t come from doing everything yourself. It comes from shaping, enabling and empowering others to think and act for themselves.
2. Communicate and contract
Clarity is great. But it’s not enough to know your role—you have to communicate it.
Set expectations with the people you support, whether they are direct reports, leaders you are coaching, or a group you are facilitating.
If you don’t, they might assume you’re owning the what and the how. And suddenly, you’re stuck in pair-of-hands or surrogate leader mode.
Clear roles = fewer assumptions = less frustration and greater sustainability.
It’s not just about setting boundaries—it’s about building trust, creating alignment, and setting the work and relationship up for success.
3. Model the way and invite reflection
Breaking free from the Doer Trap isn’t about doing less—it’s about leading differently and growing capabilities.
One of the best ways to do this is to model the behaviors you want to see and label your intentions to remove any assumptions about your questions or about not suggesting ideas immediately. For instance, “I’m asking this question to help you think, not because I expect a certain answer.” Or, “I”m pausing to give you time to think” or “I have experience with similar problems, but I want to first hear what is happening here and one idea you have before I share mine”.
And, importantly, create space for reflection—what worked, what didn’t and how to keep improving and moving forward.
In doing so, you encourage ownership and reinforce that your job is to create the space for others to learn, grow and take responsibility for themselves.
These three shifts might seem simple—but they’re powerful. They’ll help you stop doing everything and start enabling what matters.
It’s time to step out of the Doer Trap and into your full leadership potential.
