You hand something off. They do it. And then you look at what they did and think...
Oh.
Well, that's not how I would've done it…
Maybe it's a project at work. Your spouse handled something at home. Your kid took care of a responsibility you've been trying to get them to own.
Technically, the thing got done — right?
But you're already seeing what you would've done differently (better in your eyes).
The wording. The order. The way they organized it. That one part you definitely would've caught, but of course they didn’t.
And before you've even decided whether anything is actually wrong, you're halfway to taking it back over.
I know this reflex.
When you can see how to make something better, fixing it feels almost automatic. Why leave it when you know what you'd change?
Except there's a question I've had to get much better at asking:
Is this actually wrong, or is it just not how I would do it?
Those are very different things.
And wow, can they feel exactly the same when you're used to being the one who knows how you like things done.
And there's a reason taking something back can feel responsible.
You're protecting the quality, the deadline, the customer experience, the outcome. You're saving everyone time by just correcting it yourself.
Sometimes that's true.
There are standards that matter. There are situations where the work genuinely isn't good enough and pretending otherwise doesn't help anyone grow.
Now, hear me out... trust doesn't mean lowering the bar.
But if every difference gets treated like a problem, we haven't really handed over ownership — and that’s a whole other problem.
So essentially we've handed someone a task and kept ourselves in charge of every decision inside it.
I mean, eew. That's exhausting for us, isn’t it?
It's also frustrating for them.
Think about how it feels when someone asks you to take responsibility for something but then watches every move, rewrites what you wrote, changes the decisions you made and eventually just starts doing parts of it themselves.
At some point you're probably thinking, Ok, then why did you even ask me?
Exactly.
We can accidentally create that same experience for other people while telling ourselves we're just being helpful.
And the hardest part is that stepping in often works because the project gets done faster, mistakes get prevented, the house gets handled the way you prefer.
Sure. Everything looks better in the short term.
But what happens the next time?
They wait for you to check it. They ask you before making the decision. They stop trusting their own judgment because experience has taught them that you're probably going to change it anyway.
Then one day you're frustrated because everyone needs your approval before doing anything.
Well...
That’s on us, isn’t it? We built that system.
Oof.
So what does trust actually look like here?
Trust isn't standing across the room thinking, I believe in you. It's letting someone make decisions you would've made differently and resisting the urge to intervene unless the difference actually matters.
That's harder.
And it's harder because now you have to decide what the real standard is.
What outcome actually matters here?
What is preference?
What is a genuine quality issue?
What is a different route to the same destination?
And if something does need to be corrected, can you give the feedback without grabbing the whole thing back?
That's another skill entirely.
“Here's the part that isn't working yet. What do you think we could change?”
feels very different from:
“Never mind. I'll fix it.”
One develops someone.
The other gets the task done.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes we genuinely need the task done.
There are deadlines and high-stakes moments when teaching through the whole process isn't realistic. But if that becomes the answer every time, we're going to keep being the person who has to handle everything because nobody around us ever gets enough room to become good at handling it too.
This shows up with our kids in such an obvious way.
You ask them to clean something.
You walk back in.
Good grief.
Is that what we're calling clean?
You can redo it yourself in three minutes, or you can decide what they actually need to learn and let the process take longer than you'd like.
Parenting has an inconvenient way of making efficiency and growth compete with each other.
Work does too. So do relationships.
Sometimes letting someone own something means tolerating a version that is perfectly acceptable and still not yours. That doesn't mean you stop caring about excellence. It just means excellence and sameness aren't the same thing.
Now, faith has challenged me here too because trust requires a certain amount of release.
I can guide. I can communicate clearly. I can hold standards and correct what genuinely needs correction. But I don't have to control every path to the outcome.
There are things I'm responsible for stewarding well without needing my fingerprints on every part of them.
That's a very different kind of leadership than being the person who can always step in and save the day.
So the next time someone brings something back to you and your first thought is That's not how I would've done it, give yourself a second before you reach for the keyboard.
Is it wrong?
Is it below the standard?
Or is it simply theirs?
If it's theirs… let it be.
That's how people eventually become someone you don't have to keep checking on.
Want to keep going with this conversation?
🎧 Listen to Episode 46: Learning to Trust Others When You're Used to Carrying Everything Yourself →