Multiply your impact by becoming a leader who grows leaders

He was known for getting things done, and honestly, that was part of the problem. When a project stalled, he grabbed it back. When meetings meandered, he took the pen and made the plan. Results came, but his team stopped reaching, and his calendar turned into a wall. One Thursday night he looked at the backlog with a sigh and noticed a pattern. The tasks he clung to were the same ones he complained about. He wasn’t just busy, he was the bottleneck.

The next week he tried a different metric: not “How much did I do?” but “How many leaders did I grow?” He listed his team, circled the top 20 percent with the character, capacity, and contribution to multiply others, and set real dates to pass work through the equipping ladder. On Tuesday, he ran a client call while Priya observed. On Thursday, Priya ran the call while he observed. A week later, Priya ran the call and looped in Marco to observe. He bit his tongue when she did it her way. The client was happy. He wrote “ownership beats perfection” on a sticky note.

There were wobbles. A handoff got messy, and a deliverable slipped. He used their monthly mentoring rhythm to ask, “What’s the system fix?” They agreed on a two-step pre-flight checklist and a quick Friday huddle. He opened their sessions to life skill topics—boundary setting, hard conversations, and how to prepare for a big room. The vibe changed. Priya started coaching a peer. Marco asked to lead a pilot. The backlog stopped growing.

Underneath was a simple, hard shift. Producers measure output. People developers measure who else is producing. The 80% rule fights perfectionism so ownership can scale. The five-step ladder (I do, I do/you watch, you do/I watch, you do, you do/someone else watches) makes transfer concrete. The 80/20 focus on high-potential people speeds culture change. Leader multiplication is the only sustainable way to expand your mission without expanding your burnout.

Circle your top 20 percent, the folks with the character, capacity, and contribution to multiply others, and decide to spend most of your development time with them. Map the equipping ladder on a calendar—when will you move from you doing to them doing, and who will they bring along? When their performance hits 80 percent of yours, let go and coach outcomes, not style. Anchor it all with a monthly mentoring rhythm that covers assessment, one concrete challenge, and real support—including life skills. In a quarter, your calendar will look different because your people will be leading. Start the list today.