Becoming a Lead

It’s about scaling.

When Amy realized she was still a Contributor—just one who needed help from her team—everything became clearer. She didn’t need to learn a lot of new tricks and skills to be a manager. She just needed to learn to scale her own performance by recruiting others.

Here's what that looks like:

You own a responsibility to your boss. You’ve had an open 1:1 discussion. You've negotiated the goal, your authorities and constraints, and the key results that define success. You own that outcome. Your boss is relying on you.

But you've also realized: you can't deliver this alone without sacrificing something—the quality of your work, your own wellbeing, the pace of execution. So you make a strategic choice. You decide to break your responsibility into pieces and recruit people to help you with some of those pieces.

The moment you do this, you've transitioned from pure Contributor to Lead. Not because you got promoted or took on a new title. It’s because you're now activating other people's performance in service of your outcome.

Here's a glimpse at the next level: Being a Lead isn't about parceling out tasks, it's about recruiting others to help.

Sometimes your ‘team’ comes preassembled. Other times you create the team you need for a specific purpose solely because the objective is too big to handle by yourself. 

Here’s a really simple example - you’ve accepted the responsibility of delivering a retirement part for your boss. You could do it yourself. But there’s a lot to do, in addition to all of your other responsibilities. You need to pick a date that works with their family so they can be there for this big event. You need to book a room. You need to invite coworkers, You need to find a photographer. You need to get the room set up. You need to clean up after the party. That’s a lot. So you recruit others. 

You have created a team. It’s not on the org chart. It’s just a team that’s focused on helping you deliver a very specific outcome. In some organizations, this is the primary way that teams are formed.

What did you do? You asked others for help with specific subordinate pieces. But you didn’t hand off the outcome itself. It’s still your responsibility to ensure that the retirement party is a success. If the pieces don't fit together or someone can't deliver their piece, that impacts your responsibility. If reality shifts and the plan won't work—that's still your problem. You can’t simply turn it over to someone else and walk away. People are relying on you. 

It’s the same idea for every team, regardless of whether it’s planning a party or rolling out a strategic new product at work. When you enlist others, your responsibility doesn’t change. But here's what does change: Now you need everyone you’ve recruited to activate their own performance at a high level. Once you’ve recruited them into a supporting responsibility, they own that piece. Not you. They make decisions within their authorities and constraints. They learn through trying and failing. They develop judgment.

But here's the tension: You have a vested interest in their success. If they fail, your outcome suffers. So you need to create conditions where they can own their piece and deliver effectively. You need to activate them with the same clarity and fairness that your boss activated you. Goal. Authorities and constraints. Key results. Transparent expectations. The ability to exercise autonomy within boundaries. They become a Contributor to your goal. 

Some of the people you recruit will be more sophisticated at activating their own performance than others. You'll need to adjust how you delegate—how much scaffolding, how much autonomy, how much check-in. You want to facilitate their success. And you do it by modeling and explaining how performance works within the culture. But modeling and explaining is different from actually taking on the role of mentor or coach. You might also do that. But it’s a different relationship beyond simply recruiting them to help you. Your job, as their Lead, is simply to create the conditions where they can activate their own performance in service of the piece you've asked them to own.

The Lead role is additive

When you’re a Lead, you’re also still a Contributor - you still owe an outcome to someone else. 

You’re simply scaling your ability to deliver value. You’re asking others to help you deliver an outcome that you wouldn’t be able to deliver on your own. That’s now your team. 

And, to be clear, teams don’t own outcomes. You still retain your responsibility. You alone.

All you’re doing is expanding the mission chain. Now others own new, subordinate, responsibilities that didn’t exist before you asked for their help. That’s what makes you a Lead. Not a title on an org chart.