Create Space for Other Leaders
Summary: The verbatim LinkedIn post behind the “Create Space for Other Leaders” practice — reproduced word for word as it was published.
Sources: LinkedIn Posts.md (“Create Space for Other Leaders,” posted 2026-05-12), verbatim
Last updated: 2026-07-11
Originally posted May 12, 2026.
Over the years, I’ve learned that leadership that scales doesn’t come from one heroic decision maker at the center. It comes when we deliberately create space for other leaders to emerge, practice judgment, and own real outcomes.
In every successful AI adoption I’ve been part of, the real inflection point was not a new model or platform. It was the moment the center of leadership gravity shifted from a few experts to a broader circle of people trusted to make real calls. That’s when the work accelerated, trust deepened, and the solutions were confidently embraced.
What does it look like, in practice, to create that kind of space? A few patterns have shown up again and again:
- I hand over real decisions, not just tasks. Owning a model, a product, or a relationship with users is very different from “helping with the deck.” Roles like Asset Owners, Bar Raisers, and governance leads (Safe Enablers 😊) only grow when they are given true accountability, not just commentary rights.
- I invite others into hard conversations early. Instead of revealing a polished AI strategy and asking for feedback, I bring rising leaders into the First Wrong Answer: the tradeoffs between speed and safety, innovation and governance, experimentation and operational risk. That is where their judgment is forged, and where they start to see themselves as owners, not passengers.
- I try to normalize asking for help as a leadership muscle, not a deficit. The leaders I admire most are fearless in saying “I don’t know” and in calling their own Kitchen Cabinet before a critical decision. That humility gives emerging leaders permission to do the same, long before small issues become damage-control events.
- I try to stay present without crowding out others. In Navy terms, the captain is on the bridge leaving and entering harbor—but the watch team is driving the ship. In AI programs, that means being very visible at the start and finish of major initiatives, while letting other leaders run the middle of the voyage.
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For organizations trying to adopt and scale AI, this is not a “nice to have.” If every significant decision must go back to the same handful of experts, talent stalls, the guardians burn out, and the demand curve quickly outruns the ability to govern safely.
Creating space for other leaders is itself an act of vulnerability and courage. It means explicitly giving someone else a role in shaping the future of your AI program—and, in a very real way, your own future too.
If you’re leading in this space today, here is the question I’m asking myself this quarter: where will I step back just enough that someone else can step forward—and know that I will still be there, on the bridge, when the water gets shallow again?