01 Nov Your Best People Shouldn’t Be Doing Everything

Every hospitality business has them.

The people you can rely on.

The ones who turn up, get things done, know the standards, solve problems without being asked and somehow manage to keep the wheels turning when everyone else is struggling.

So when something needs fixing, who do you give it to?

Your best people.

And that’s exactly where the problem starts.

Your best people become the safety net.

Need someone to train the new hire? Give it to your best person.

Someone called in sick? Your best person can cover.

A junior isn’t performing? Your best person can keep an eye on them.

The prep isn’t done? They’ll sort it out.

The service is getting messy? They’ll step in.

It feels like good management because the problem gets solved.

But the business is quietly creating a dependency.

Your strongest people become the safety net for everyone else.

And the better they are, the more you rely on them.

Eventually, your best people become your biggest bottleneck.

There is a hidden cost to this.

Every time your best employee steps in to fix something that somebody else should have been capable of handling, the business loses an opportunity to build capability.

The junior doesn’t learn.

The supervisor doesn’t develop.

The manager doesn’t take responsibility.

And your best person gets another thing added to their workload.

Eventually they’re exhausted, frustrated and wondering why they’re doing three people’s jobs.

Then they leave.

And suddenly everyone discovers just how much of the business was being held together by one person.

Don’t reward capability with more work

One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is assuming that their best people should simply take on more.

They shouldn’t.

They should be given more responsibility — but with the authority, resources and development required to handle it.

There’s a big difference.

If someone is constantly fixing other people’s mistakes, ask why.

If they’re always the person training new staff, ask whether you have a training system.

If they’re constantly covering gaps, ask why your rostering or workforce planning isn’t solving them.

If they’re the only person who knows how something works, ask why that knowledge isn’t documented and taught to others.

The answer shouldn’t always be, “They’re really good at it.”

Sometimes the answer should be, “We’ve built a system that makes them indispensable.”

Build capability, don’t create heroes

Good businesses don’t depend on heroes.

They create teams where more people are capable of doing more things to a consistently high standard.

That means your best people should spend less time rescuing the operation and more time developing the people around them.

Teach the supervisor how to solve the problem.

Give the junior a clear standard and the training to meet it.

Document the process.

Delegate the responsibility.

Create accountability.

Then move on.

The take-away

Because the real measure of a great leader isn’t how much they can personally get done.

It’s how much more capable everyone becomes because they are there.

Your best people shouldn’t be doing everything.

They should be helping build a team that doesn’t need them to.

Get in touch if you’d like to find out how we can help strengthen your teams, so you don’t burn out your best people.