Have you ever led a group of people, all of whom depended on you to take them to wherever you all happened to be going, and all of you got hopelessly lost because you either didn’t know the way well enough or got confused and took a wrong turn, perhaps? Have you ever had to make a decision, the outcome of which might very well have caused your company to shut down and many of your people become unemployed as a result? Did you feel good when you were going through those situations? Was it lonely out there? Yes, I know it was.

That’s something you as a leader have to stop. Right here and right now! You’re a leader, so lead! You are not expected to know it all. If your people have come to expect you to know it all, it simply means that you haven’t developed them well enough. It could be that you have made all the judgment calls without consulting or explaining to them why those decisions were made, and by what means they were arrived at. It could mean that you have not been delegating tasks and projects to your people as you should have.

Leadership is not about depending on the rock star. It’s about you employing your own competencies to serve your people by helping them develop theirs. It’s about stepping back and letting someone else take charge in a deliberate fashion, so that when the situation calls for it, your people are confident and ready to rise to the occasion.

You’re a human. You do NOT know everything. You might not even know whether to go left or right at the next intersection. Neither do any of your people. Lead them anyway. Tell them why you want to go left or right, and what you intend to do if the choice turns out to be not what you expected. Once everyone is aboard, man your stations, strap down, and let’s go!