For a while, I thought I had a discipline problem.
Whenever I couldn’t give something the attention I wanted, my first instinct was to look for a way to push harder. A better schedule. More time blocked off. A little more consistency.
But when I looked at what was actually happening, I realized I wasn’t doing nothing. I was working, learning, spending time with people who matter to me, and making room for life outside work.
I didn’t need to prove I could do more. I needed to recognize that my capacity had changed.
👉🏼 I had less capacity.
That changed the question I was asking myself.
“Why am I not disciplined enough to do everything?” I started asking:
“What am I already carrying?”
The second question was much more useful. It forced me to look beyond my behaviour and understand what was happening around it.
And that made me think about leadership.
Because I wonder how often you see someone struggling and start trying to correct the person before understanding what that person is carrying.
The person may not be the problem
Think about one person you work with.
Someone you trust. They normally do good work. They follow through, contribute ideas, and rarely need you to chase them.
Then something changes.
Their work starts taking longer. They miss details they normally catch. They become quieter during conversations. Maybe you find yourself following up more often.
What story starts forming in your head?
You might think they need to focus more. Maybe their time management has slipped. Maybe they aren’t as engaged as they used to be. Maybe you need to hold them more accountable.
Any of those explanations could be right.
The problem starts when you decide they are right before you understand what changed.
The leadership trap
There is a thinking trap that can shape how you respond in this moment.
In psychology, it is called the fundamental attribution error. In simple terms, it describes our tendency to explain another person’s behaviour by focusing too much on the person and not enough on the situation around them.
In leadership, this can happen very quickly.
You see a missed deadline and think about discipline. You see a mistake and think about attention. You see someone becoming quieter and think about engagement.
The behaviour is visible, so your attention goes straight to the person.
What is harder to see is everything happening around them.
The competing priorities. The meetings breaking up their day. The work someone else asked them to do. The changing expectations. The constant messages. The “quick” requests that weren’t actually quick.
You see the behaviour.
You don’t always see everything that came before it.
That is the leadership trap.
You start diagnosing the person before understanding the situation.
Once you decide the problem is discipline, focus, or accountability, your response follows that belief. You might add another check-in, push harder on the deadline, ask for more updates, or tell the person they need to manage their time better.
But what if capacity was the real problem?
You could end up adding more pressure to a situation that already has too much of it.
This doesn’t mean you should assume workload is always the answer. That would simply replace one assumption with another.
Sometimes the person needs clearer expectations. Sometimes they need support. Sometimes there is a skill gap. Sometimes you need a direct conversation about performance.
The point is to understand the problem before you decide on the response.
For me, this is where holistic leadership becomes practical.
You don’t only look at the output. You look at the person, the work, the conditions around them, and your own role in creating those conditions.
Overload rarely arrives all at once
Imagine that person begins Monday with three important priorities.
On Tuesday, something urgent comes up and you need their help. On Wednesday, another request arrives. On Thursday, a problem needs immediate attention. Then on Friday, you ask for one more thing before the end of the day.
Every request made sense when you made it.
That’s what makes this so easy to miss.
You didn’t intentionally overload someone. You added one reasonable request at a time.
Three priorities became four. Four became five. Five became six.
But nothing came off the list.
A week later, one of the original pieces of work is late.
Now you have a choice.
You can ask:
Why didn’t you get this done?
Or you can ask:
What happened to your capacity between Monday and Friday?
Those questions can lead to very different conversations.
The first begins with a conclusion about the person.
The second begins with curiosity about what happened.
Curiosity doesn’t mean lowering your expectations.
It means getting better information before deciding what to do.
Someone always pays for the new priority
This is the part I have been reflecting on most.
New work is never free.
If you give someone four hours of unexpected work, those four hours have to come from somewhere.
Maybe another task gets delayed. Maybe preparation gets rushed. Maybe something important quietly gets pushed into tomorrow. Maybe the person stays online later to keep everything moving.
There is a trade-off, even when nobody talks about it.
And I think this is where leadership can fail quietly.
You say, “Can you also take care of this?”
The person says yes.
You walk away believing the new priority has been handled.
But what you’ve really done is hand that person another decision:
“What should I stop doing so I can do this?”
They may not know what you want them to sacrifice. They may not have the authority to move another deadline. They may not feel comfortable telling you that something has to give.
So they say yes and try to carry everything.
Eventually, something slips.
You see the missed deadline.
You don’t see all the trade-offs that came before it.
This is why I think accountability has to work in both directions. You can hold someone accountable for what they agreed to deliver.
But you also need to hold yourself accountable for what you keep asking them to carry.
One question can change the conversation
I don’t want to give you seven steps or another leadership framework.
I want you to change one question.
The next time you are about to give someone meaningful new work, don’t stop at:
Can you do this?
Start with:
If this moves up, what should move down?
Then listen.
Imagine they tell you, “If I work on this today, I won’t finish the report until Thursday.”
Now you have information you didn’t have before.
Maybe Thursday is fine. Maybe the report cannot move, so the new request has to wait. Maybe someone else can take it. Maybe another deadline can change.
You may even realize that the thing you called urgent isn’t as urgent as you first thought.
You haven’t lowered your standards or removed accountability.
You’ve made the trade-off visible.
More importantly, you’ve made it something you decide together rather than something the other person has to silently absorb.
Why “Can you do this?” isn’t enough
Think about what it feels like when “Can you do this?” comes from your manager.
You probably want to be helpful. You want to show that you can be trusted. You don’t want to look like the person who always pushes back.
Saying yes can feel much easier than explaining why something else needs to move.
“If this moves up, what should move down?” creates a different conversation.
It acknowledges something important before the person even answers:
Their capacity has limits.
That gives them room to tell you what you cannot see.
Maybe a report you thought took thirty minutes actually takes three hours. Maybe another person has been giving them work. Maybe a recurring meeting takes away the only uninterrupted block of time they have all week.
You cannot lead from information you don’t have.
And you’re less likely to get that information if you’ve already decided the problem is the person.
I had to ask myself the same question
This lesson came back to me when I looked at my own capacity.
When I thought I needed more discipline, my instinct was to add something. A better schedule. Another block on my calendar. More structure. More pressure on myself to get things done.
But “finding more time” wasn’t really the problem.
Time wasn’t hiding from me.
I was already using it.
The real question was whether something new mattered enough to take attention away from something else.
So I’ve started asking myself the same question:
If this moves up, what moves down?
I don’t always like the answer.
Sometimes it means waiting. Sometimes it means saying no to something I genuinely want to do. Sometimes it means accepting that something can be valuable without being important right now.
But every yes costs something.
What matters is seeing the trade-off instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.
I’ve also realized something about the way I lead myself.
If I constantly expect myself to carry more without removing anything, it becomes easier to see that as normal when I lead someone else.
You normalize carrying more.
Then you expect someone else to carry more too.
Seeing the whole person doesn’t mean lowering the bar
This distinction matters to me when I think about holistic leadership.
Seeing the whole person doesn’t mean ignoring results. It doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations. It doesn’t mean explaining away every missed commitment by blaming workload.
Sometimes the person does need more discipline. Sometimes expectations weren’t clear. Sometimes there is a skill gap. Sometimes you need a direct conversation about performance.
But first, understand what you’re actually dealing with.
That small space between what you observe and what you conclude matters.
Instead of immediately asking, “What’s wrong with this person’s performance?” you can ask, “What has changed around this person?”
Instead of assuming they need to manage their time better, look at what is competing for that time.
Instead of adding another check-in because work is late, ask whether another meeting is what they actually need.
For me, that is part of holistic leadership.
You still care about results, commitments, and accountability. But you don’t separate those things from the person doing the work.
You look at the whole picture before deciding what needs to change.
Try this with one person
I don’t want this article to become another thing you add to your leadership routine.
Choose one person.
For the next week, notice what you ask that person to carry. Pay attention when something unexpected becomes important.
When you’re about to say, “Can you also take care of this?” stop.
Start with:
If this moves up, what should move down?
Then give them room to answer.
You may find that the person you thought needed more discipline actually needed a clearer priority. You may discover work that no longer needs to be done. You may learn that you’ve been changing direction more often than you realized.
Or you may find that capacity isn’t the problem at all.
That’s useful too.
The goal isn’t to assume every performance problem is caused by overload.
The goal is to stop diagnosing the person before you’ve understood the situation.
That’s the leadership trap.
And lately, it’s something I’ve been trying to notice in myself too.
Maybe becoming better doesn’t always mean learning how to carry more.
Sometimes it means becoming much clearer about what deserves to be carried in the first place.
So think again about that one person you had in mind when you started reading.
💬 What have you asked them to carry that you haven’t given them permission to put down?
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Thanks for reading.
See you next week!
- Carlos