Put others down; hoard knowledge
You put others down to feel bigger, hoard knowledge, or fixate on people’s flaws, isolating yourself and shrinking the capability of everyone around you.
Help when it’s easy or novel
You help when you’re in a good mood, when the person is easy to like, or when mentoring feels novel. As soon as you get busy or bored, you disappear or resent their questions, leaving them hanging.
Generous when calm; take the work back under pressure
When work is calm, you are warm, attentive, and generous with advice. Under deadline pressure, your willpower runs out—you either ignore people’s growth or impatiently take the work back to do it yourself.
Structured check-ins, guardrails, specific feedback
You design how you support others—using structured check-ins, clear guardrails on stretch projects, and specific feedback—so you can keep investing in people even during busy weeks without burning out or taking over their work.
Hand over what you excel at; coach, don’t rescue
You deliberately hand over work you excel at so someone else can grow, willingly absorbing the short-term slowdown while championing them behind closed doors. When someone stumbles under a stretch goal, you don’t rescue them—you coach them through the fix and upgrade how you scaffold delegation next time.