If you're not willing to fight for your team,

you're not their leader - you're just another obstacle.

Real leadership means removing barriers,
not creating them.

I learned this the hard way at IBM when I lost my best developer because I didn't shield him from the organizational chaos above.

Protect your people so they can do their best work:

1. Stop Meeting Madness
↳ 30 hours of meetings per week = 0 hours of real work

2. Filter Every 'ASAP'
↳ Question urgent requests - many are fake emergencies

3. Prevent Burnout
↳ Exhausted teams create mistakes, not magic

4. Shield from Office Politics
↳ Absorb organizational chaos so your team can focus

5. Push Back on Deadlines
↳ Negotiate realistic timelines upfront. Never accept overtime as the default

6. Require Priority Trade-offs
↳ Make stakeholders choose what stops when they add new work

7. Eliminate Useless Work
↳ Cut low-value tasks such as creating reports that nobody reads

8. Protect Deep Work
↳ Create distraction-free times and keep "quick requests" from destroying focus time

9. Cut Through Bureaucracy
↳ Push back on approvals and processes that slow your team down

10. Amplify Their Wins
↳ CC their achievements to skip-level managers. Make their success impossible to ignore

Your team doesn't need another manager.

They need a leader who truly has their back.

Be that leader.

PS: What's one thing you wish more leaders did for their teams?

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