We had one of those unicorn nights. All four of us home. Sitting down to dinner. At the same time. We cooked, and then our kids very politely let us know they had other plans.
Our 7-year-old wanted eggs and made them for himself. Our daughter, 10 going on 25, decided she was making mac n’ cheese. Now, she’s not new to the kitchen. We’ve shown her things before. Helped her along the way.
But this time, we did something different. We told her to read the directions, and then we backed off, ready to step in only if a kitchen fire seemed probable.
But everything else? We let it ride. She put the noodles into cold water. Paused. Looked at it. Questioned it. Waited. Wondered why nothing was happening. Turned up the heat.
She had to figure out how you actually know when pasta is done. Not guess. Not ask. Figure it out. Taste it.
She struggled a bit figuring out how to get the pasta into a colander to drain it.
She eyeballed the milk. Stirred. Adjusted. Taste tested like a tiny chef.
Surprisingly, her mac n’ cheese turned out really good! And it’s not because she followed the directions perfectly. She didn’t. But she stayed in it long enough to figure it out.
If we had jumped in every time something looked “off,” she would have had a smoother process and she would have learned a whole lot less.
I see leaders fall into this trap all the time!
At work. At home. With your teams. With yourselves.
You say you want confident, capable people around you and then you interrupt the exact process that creates confidence.
You step in too early. You fix too fast. You trade short-term efficiency for long-term dependency.
And you do the same thing to yourself.
You want to be good immediately. You want to look like you know what you’re doing. You avoid the stretch where you might get it wrong.
So you hesitate. Overthink. Or stay in what you already know. And then you wonder why growth feels slow.
Confidence doesn’t come from getting it right but rather from staying in it when you’re not sure if you are.
My daughter now knows what it looks like when pasta actually cooks. She knows what too much milk does. She knows she can adjust, taste, and figure it out.
That’s the win! It’s not perfection or speed but capability.
Same goes for your team.
If everything has to go through you to be “right,” they’ll keep coming back to you. If mistakes get cleaned up before they fully land, learning gets cut short.
And if you don’t give yourself room to try things you might not nail the first time, you’re quietly capping your own growth.
Encouraging failure doesn’t mean you lower the bar. No! It just means you’re more thoughtful about when to step in and when to stay quiet.
It’s knowing the difference between unsafe and just uncomfortable.
It’s letting things be a little messy so people can become more capable.
Tonight, my daughter made mac n’ cheese her way.
It wasn’t perfect. It was better than that. It was hers.
And that’s what builds people who can actually lead. At work and at home.