The Leadership Test Nobody Talks About: Can Your Organisation Function Without You?

As I prepare for my own summer break, I’ve found myself thinking about something I suspect many senior leaders secretly wrestle with. Not budgets. Not performance. Not transformation programmes. It’s annual leave or more specifically, what happens when you’re not there.

There have been times in the past when I have checked my phone far more often than I’d like to admit while I was on leave. Nothing had gone wrong. Nobody was calling in a crisis. Yet every so often I’d find myself looking at emails, checking messages or wondering whether there was something waiting for my attention.

It wasn’t because the organisation depended on me. If I am honest with myself, it was because I had convinced myself it might.

The longer I’ve worked in leadership roles, the more I’ve come to believe that annual leave reveals something important about both leaders and organisations. Can my organisation function without me? Or perhaps more importantly, have I created the conditions for it to do so?

Many of us progress through our careers because we’re good at solving problems. We become known as the person who can unblock an issue, make a difficult decision or step into a complicated situation. Those are valuable skills but at some point the job changes. Leadership becomes less about being the person with the answer and more about creating confidence, capability and judgement in others.

I’ve seen this lesson from both sides.

In my first ever director role, I can remember returning from leave to find decisions had sat untouched waiting for me to come back. Nobody was doing anything wrong. Talented people were trying to do the right thing. The problem was that I’d unintentionally created a culture where important decisions had gradually travelled upwards.

At the time, it felt reassuring to be needed, looking back, it wasn’t particularly healthy. If everything stops when a leader takes annual leave, that isn’t necessarily evidence of their value. It may simply be evidence that too much depends upon them.

There’s an uncomfortable truth in that observation.

My inner voice has definitely told myself at times that staying connected was about responsibility. Some of it probably was. However, some of it was habit and some of it anxiety but if I’m completely honest, some of it was probably ego. Being needed can feel good.

The difficulty is that organisations cannot build resilience around individual people, no matter how capable those people may be. They build resilience by developing capability throughout the organisation.

Every time a leader steps in to solve a problem that others could solve themselves, they may fix today’s issue while making tomorrow’s organisation a little weaker. Every time people feel they need permission for decisions that sit comfortably within their role, confidence diminishes and dependence grows. Over time that becomes exhausting for everyone.

The strongest organisations I’ve worked in have looked very different. People understood the direction of travel. They knew the limits of their authority. They felt comfortable exercising judgement. They didn’t constantly look upwards for approval because they had the confidence to make decisions. That doesn’t mean mistakes never happen; of course they do. Learning organisations accept that occasional mistakes are often the price of developing capable leaders at every level.

The reality is quite simple! If an organisation genuinely struggles because one person is away for two weeks, something is probably not working as well as it should. That matters in every sector, but particularly in public services where demand never really stops. There will always be another meeting, another briefing, another urgent issue competing for attention.

The work I do in my sector is endless - it never stops, which means I and my team have a responsibility not just to deliver today, but to build something that can sustain tomorrow.

I go on leave shortly and I am tired. Rest matters and perspective matters at my level, but perhaps most importantly, organisations (my own included), also need opportunities to prove they can function without the constant presence of their leaders.

I have been a senior public sector director for 24 years and looking back on my time, the best leaders I’ve worked with rarely seemed interested in being indispensable. They were interested in building strong teams - developing others, creating clarity, and sharing responsibility. They understood that leadership is not measured by how many decisions you make personally. It is, however, measured by how many people are capable of making good decisions when you’re not there.

As I said I’m heading off on leave myself as I write this and I’d like to think things will run perfectly well without me. I am telling myself that if they do, that isn’t a sign that I’m unnecessary, instead it may actually be one of the strongest indicators that the team is working exactly as it should.

So before your next period of annual leave, it may be worth asking yourself a different question.

Not:

“How will I keep up with everything while I’m away?”

But:

“What would need to change for me not to have to?”

The answer might tell you something important about your organisation and crucially, perhaps something important about your leadership too.

I strongly believe that one of the most revealing tests of leadership effectiveness is not what happens when you’re present. It’s what happens when you’re not. Enjoy your break and travels!