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Today I’d like to talk about one of the biggest traps in data leadership. A trap that turns bright, ambitious data professionals into overworked, thinly stretched managers who are stuck reacting to everything instead of influencing and shaping things.

The trap is simple: It frequently occurs when the data leader also happens to be the most technical person on the team, and for that reasons remains relatively hands on.

Why is this a trap?

Because if you are stuck writing SQL, debugging pipelines and building half the dashboards your team were hired to produce, you’re hardly operating as a manager. You’re not building capability, you’re not elevating your team and you’re certainly not being seen across the business as a strategic peer.

You’re simply the highest paid individual contributor (IC).

Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens when companies reward the top individual contributor by promoting them into a management role without actually teaching them how to manage. A classic example of the Peter Principal in action.

Here is what this dynamic creates for your career and your team.

👩🏼‍🔧 Impact 1. You get dragged back into IC mode
Because you’re the fastest and most capable technically, your team naturally lean on you for help. Before long, you’re knee deep in stakeholder data request tickets, switching from high level architecture thinking to wrangling data within the same hour. Your strategic responsibilities take a back seat and the business sees you as a doer, not the leader they’re looking for and need.

🚌 Impact 2. Your team stop developing
If you keep jumping in to fix problems because you can do it faster, your team never get the chance to properly grow. Their learning stalls, their confidence dips and you become a bottleneck without even realising it. Aka Key Person Dependency Risk or Bus Factor.

🦮 Impact 3. Micromanagement creeps in
Managers who stay too deep in the weeds often end up controlling every decision. Not intentionally. It just happens. The message your team hears is that their judgement is not trusted, only your is. That erodes psychological safety and eventually kills team morale. Your folks will move on before you know it.

🛠️ Impact 4. Your peers do not see you as a peer
It’s almost impossible to be accepted as a strategic leader when half the company only ever sees you with your sleeves rolled up trying to fix broken models. You need to show up at a different level and you simply cannot do that if you are always in the weeds. To but in bluntly, behaving like this is a career limiting move.

Good news. This is all fixable. And you can start right now.

The reason this matters is simple. Until you step out of IC mode, you cannot step into true leadership. And until your team is able to grow without you, you will stay stuck at your current level.

Here is how to change the dynamic.

1. Strive to be the least technical person in your own team
This is not a humiliation. It is the goal. Your job now is to nurture people who are better than you at these things. That is what high performing leaders do. They aim to be the dumbest person in the room.

If your team outgrow you technically, congratulations. You are doing it right.

2. Delegate properly and allow things to take longer than you would like
Yes, it is slower at first. Yes, your inner perfectionist will scream. But this is how people learn. Think of it as compound interest on your future capacity. Every hour you spend coaching them to be better is one hundred hours you get back later.

3. Time box your technical contributions
Work backwards from your true responsibilities: Stakeholder management. Strategic planning. Building alignment. Coaching and mentoring. Then decide how much time is left for hands on work. Maybe you shift from fifty percent hands on to twenty percent. Maybe to ten. But decide the boundary and stick to it. Let your team pick up the slack!

4. Redefine your identity. You are no longer the athlete. You are the team coach.
Your job is not to score goals. Your job is to create the environment where others can. When the team win, you win. If you keep kicking the ball yourself, you are holding everyone back, including you. Get off the damn field.

👉🏼 See my recent post on overcoming “manager’s guilt”

5. Build systems that reduce dependency on you
Clear ownership. Documented processes. Structured intake. Defined decision rights. Create scaffolding that allows your team to operate without constant managerial intervention from you. Delegate authority to certain individuals to make certain decisions without needing to consult you.

6. Invest heavily in one to ones
Most new managers wing it. Do not wing it. Use one to ones to build trust, coach problem solving skills, understand skill gaps and help people build confidence. When your team grow, you grow.

If you can do even two of these consistently, the entire shape of your role will change. The business starts seeing you differently. Your team start stepping up. And you finally get the headspace to operate as the leader you were promoted to be.

Good luck out there, and if you need any help with this. I’m your guy.

Tristan Burns

Find me on LinkedIn or Book a 1:1 call

Last week I asked you: What’s the biggest blocker to aligning your data strategy with your organisation’s actual strategy?

Here’s how you responded:

For most folks, their is either no clear strategy in existence, or you don’t have the headspace to align with it. These are not good to hear…