The Trappings of Becoming a True Leader

As I prepare to work with more than 100 new leaders this month, I’ve been focused on creating training sessions that incorporate the hard-won leadership lessons I learned through trial and error. Lessons that I wish someone had shared with me when I was first leading a team of employees. Things I wish I could go back and tell my 24-year-old self, who was in charge of seasonal naturalists who were older than my parents.

First off, let’s be super clear, I wasn’t ready to be anyone’s boss when I walked in the door for my first full-time job out of college. I was barely prepared to be a full-time employee. However, someone had to be in charge of the seasonal employees—and I was the new kid. Literally.

Things I didn’t do right included:

I didn’t set clear expectations. I left them to figure it all out.
Forgot to tell them they did a good job.
Only paid attention to their schedules in order to make sure that all of the nature center programs were covered.
Didn’t tell them that you can’t freeze a whole skunk (it was road kill, and they knew we needed a tanned skunk skin for an exhibit). We all learned the hard way that when you do freeze a whole skunk, the scent glands expand and… well, you can imagine the rest. There may be a faint smell of skunk still hanging out in that basement today…

Things I think I started to get right from the beginning:

Getting to know people and ensuring they understood their job responsibilities.
Teaching them how to effectively teach and lead programs.
Letting my enthusiasm for the job rub off on them.
I delegated projects that I couldn’t manage on my own.

Things I would go back and tell myself that I learned over time:

Stop avoiding conversations and being angry at them for not knowing how things were supposed to be done; it was a waste of time and energy for everyone.
Talk with them to identify the skills they bring to the table and what they want to develop, and delegate tasks to them accordingly.
Say thank you more often. Every day. Be honest about it.
Ask them instead of telling them. Saying, “Would you cover the desk for an hour?” is a far superior way to delegate than “I need you to cover the desk for an hour now.” It is a sign of respect to ask them.
Stop saying, “It’s just easier to do it myself.” Taking over does not help your employees grow.

A few years after I started at that skunk-smelling nature center, I moved to a statewide education position with the state wildlife agency. The Deputy Director at the time pulled me into his office and told me that I would be a leader someday, and that I needed to start building my leadership skills. From the first week-long new manager series I attended 18 years ago, I was hooked on leadership and skill development. Now, I get to be the person who develops leaders like you.

The skill I teach now that no one taught back then? How to successfully make the shift from being the rockstar individual contributor to the leader in charge of the individual contributors. Because there is often so little training for new managers, many new leaders fall into four super common traps.

New Leader Traps

And I'm calling these traps because that's precisely what they are. They may seem like the right thing to do, but they feel comfortable, and yet they'll absolutely sabotage your leadership success.

And if you HAVEN'T fallen into at least one of these as a new leader, you are truly extraordinary. And if you HAVE fallen into these, welcome to the club. You are completely normal.

The Specialist Trap

This is where you stay camped out in your technical comfort zone instead of developing the broader skill set you actually need as a leader. I get it. You're really good at the technical stuff! It's more enjoyable and comfortable to continue doing that work.

But here's what happens: You've got a wildlife biologist who's now supervising a team, but they're still spending 80% of their time perfecting research methodology instead of learning how budgets work, how to manage stakeholder relationships, or how to think strategically about program direction. How does a team perform under a leader who's not taking care of the tasks that make it possible for them to do their jobs?

The Micromanagement Trap

This is the classic 'I can do it faster and better myself' syndrome. And you know what? You can do it faster and better. Right now. But that short-term efficiency is creating long-term team dependence.

Every time you take something back and do it because it's easier than allowing someone to figure it out for themselves, you're training your team that they don't need to step up. That if something is hard, you'll just do it for them.

The Hero Complex

This is when you constantly swoop in to personally solve every problem that comes up - because you have the expertise to solve these problems. You think you're being helpful, but what you're really doing is preventing your team from developing their own problem-solving skills. They start waiting for you to rescue them instead of thinking through solutions themselves.

The Expertise Addiction

This is about being the smartest person in the room about the topic. Which, is common for overachievers who get promoted, right?

The cost? Your team stops thinking critically and becomes passive. They figure, 'Why bother thinking this through? The boss will just tell us what to do anyway.'

Here's a real-life example from the field: I worked with a fisheries supervisor who continued to personally review every single creel survey, rather than training their technicians and establishing quality control systems.

The result? An overworked supervisor, an undertrained staff, and they missed opportunities for program expansion because the supervisor was buried in data sheets.

The truth is, all four of these traps feel productive in the moment. And for some managers, they never escape these traps. However, they're keeping you stuck in the individual contributor mindset when you need to think like a leader.

The Emotional Toll of Becoming a Leader

Not only do we all have to navigate these traps, but becoming a leader has some serious emotional consequences that most people never tell you about. So, let’s talk about the emotional reality of making the shift from doer to leader. Because being promoted to a management role isn't just about changing what you do during the day, it is about letting go of who you've been professionally for years, maybe even decades.

Let's be honest about what you're really giving up here.

First, after years of being the expert, you're now letting go of being the person with all the technical answers. For years, people came to YOU when they had questions about what to do, methodology, what to teach, how to handle specific issues, or protocols. That felt good, didn't it? It validated your expertise and made you feel valuable at work. But now, people might start going to your team members with technical questions instead of you. That stings a little, doesn't it?

Then, most of the time, you're giving up individual recognition and achievements. Remember that feeling when your research got published, you got the award for a great project, or when you solved a particularly challenging problem? Now your wins come through other people's success, and frankly, that doesn't always feel as satisfying.

Third, you're losing the immediate satisfaction of daily hands-on productive work. There's something deeply rewarding about helping a customer, making a sale, or completing a project from beginning to end on your own. Now, you find yourself sitting in meetings about budgets and personnel issues? It’s just a different type of work and you suddenly discover that your traditional sense of productivity is gone. You used to end the day knowing exactly what you accomplished - tasks completed, sales won, reports written. Now you spend half your day in conversations and meetings that don't feel like 'real work.'

This shift feels like a loss. You worked hard to get promoted, only to have to give up the work you loved. And that's completely normal. You're not just changing jobs. You're transitioning from one professional identity to another.

It's okay to grieve the person you used to be at work. Acknowledge it, feel it, and then let's talk about what you're gaining in return.

The Rewards of Becoming a Leader

Now let's flip the script and talk about what you're gaining, because this is where leadership gets good.

Where the shift becomes the most rewarding work.

As a leader, instead of completing one large-scale project per year, you're now enabling your team to complete multiple projects simultaneously. Your impact isn't just additive, it's exponential. You're not just doing the work anymore; you're multiplying the work that gets done.

You're now developing the next generation of professionals. Think about the people you worked for who influenced your career early on, you're now that person for others. The knowledge and skills you pass on will continue making conservation impact long after you've moved on.

You're positioned to solve larger, more complex challenges. Climate adaptation, economic challenges, AI integration, new customer service systems. You now have a seat at the table for big issues that require teams, not individuals. As a leader, you tackle problems that were beyond your reach as an individual contributor.

Finally, you're not just managing your little corner anymore. You're shaping how work gets done by others. The systems you build, the people you develop, the culture you create, that ripples out far beyond your immediate team.

What most leaders will tell you, including me, is that seeing your impact multiplied through others, when you watch people you've developed succeed, and when you solve problems that are bigger than any one person could tackle, that's a different kind of professional fulfillment entirely.

I had a mentor who retired from the US Forest Service, and Steve once told me that a leader's job is to roll rocks out of the way so the employees can get the real work done. It stuck with me. You are now the rock-roller for the people on your team.

Go enjoy that your hard work puts you out in front, rolling rocks off the trail for your people. 🪨