The Wreck Already Happened

You don't have to be a micromanager to lead from fear, disappointment, suspicion, or caution. All it takes is one bad moment (one team blow-up, one botched launch, one person you believed in who absolutely wrecked the group Slack) and suddenly, you start double-checking things you used to trust.

You show up smiling. You use all the language of modern leadership. You are... Professional with the Capital P. But under the surface? You're flinching. Scanning. Braced for the return of the problem you swore you'd moved past. Alert. Vigilant.

An-ti-ci... (SAY IT!)

You're not leading from strategy anymore. You're leading from muscle memory. And not the good kind. The kind your nervous system saved, just in case.

This is what I call Riding to the Wreck.

It's what happens when your posture as a leader is still wrapped around a mistake that already ended. You don't want to repeat it. I get that. But in the effort to prevent it, you start projecting it onto people who don't deserve it.

Instead of trusting what's here, you react to what was.

And here's the kicker: it often looks like competence. Your spreadsheets are beautiful. Your change management language is impeccable. But underneath it all? It's fear. With a performance review form.

Let Me Show You What This Looked Like (In a Saddle, Not a Boardroom)

Years ago, we hosted a horse show at my home barn. My horse was four. A draft-cross, which means he looked like he could carry an ox cart uphill in a snowstorm but had the emotional processing speed of a slightly overwhelmed toddler. After sugar. In a restaurant.

I assumed home field advantage. Great for exposure. His buddies were there. Familiar setting. We got this. Sounds almost like a leadership development workshop!

Except I forgot to account for: wind, vinyl banners flapping like sentient laundry, new trailers, new horses, strange smells, and nervous riders all piled into his living room.

Ten minutes in, he gave me the smallest ask. Ears back, tiny hesitation, a look over his shoulder that clearly said, "Hey Leader, a little overwhelmed here. Have some concerns. 10-4?"

And I did what a lot of well-meaning leaders do: I gave him belief instead of backup. I told him, with my whole body: I trust you. Now keep going. I believe in you. You can DO IT!

Belief without backup is just a beautifully wrapped liability.

Empowerment. Yes.

He tried. Like so many of our people do.

Until a banner caught wind and snapped with a loud crack. He launched. I held on. Briefly. Then gravity did its thing.

And the moment I hit the dirt, he stopped. Because in his mind, he wasn't being difficult. He was saving both of us.

He turns eight this year. He hasn't bucked with intention since then. Not once. He's taken me through rivers, woods, into shows, through lessons and clinics. He's been to Worlds three times. He has shown me, again and again, that he is steady. Capable. Willing. Deserving.

But for years, every time I got on, I braced. Not because of what he was doing but because I hadn't updated the story.

He has shown more grace and forgiveness than I have.

I wasn't riding the horse I had. I was riding to the wreck.

Leaders Do This All the Time

Someone drops a ball in 2019, and we're still quietly managing them like they might fumble at any second. A team falters under pressure once, and we keep them in soft assignments because "they're still rebuilding trust."

We offer belief with one hand and guardrails with the other.

That's guardship. It's the leadership stance that looks supportive but holds people in a loop. It says, "We believe in your growth," while behaving like the banner might snap at any second.

Guardship is rarely loud. It often presents as "thoughtful," "measured," even "protective." It comes from past disappointment, not malice, but it still limits people to their lowest moment. It trades trust for preemptive control. It measures your current value based on your worst day.

Guardship is also what we internalize. We stop trusting our own judgment. We overcorrect. We shrink. We wait to feel less risky, more presentable, more proven.

Guideship Is How We Reclaim Our Ability to Lead with Discernment Instead of Fear

Guideship doesn't mean throwing caution to the wind. It means updating your sense of who someone is now and leading from that place. It's not nostalgia. It's not naivety. It's seeing clearly and choosing to move.

Guideship is what happens when you remember how you move when you're trusted. When you trust yourself again. When you stop asking your people to prove they've changed, and instead start showing them that you have.

That shift (from guardship to guideship) doesn't happen by accident. It's forged in practice, not performance:

• Intuition with a current timestamp. If you're still scanning for yesterday's warning signs, you'll miss today's readiness. Trust needs fresh data, not reruns of the wreck.
  
  

• Intention that leads, not shelters. Guarding is about fear. Guiding is about choice. You don't default to protection; you make the call that moves everyone forward.
  
  

• Relational gravity, earned in motion. Trust isn't a trait. It's a tether. You build it by showing up when it counts, staying when it's hard, and remembering who someone is now, not who they were on their worst day.

Your Checkpoint

Slow it down, and answer honestly:

• Are you coaching the current person, team, organization, or moment? Or are you still managing the version that already ended?

• Are you trusting what's in front of you? Or bracing for the return of what no longer exists?

• Are you working with the leader you have now? Or haunted by ghosts of leaders past?

• Are you riding toward what's possible? Or just trying to survive the ride?

If you've got the reins and you're still bracing, it might not be them you don't trust. It might be the ghost. It might just be you.

Let that go. Lead the one in front of you. Including the one in the mirror.