If your team can’t succeed without you, have you really empowered them?
It’s an uncomfortable question.
Many leaders genuinely believe they’re helping when they step in, correct the work, take over a decision, or prevent a mistake.
But good intentions don’t always produce good outcomes. Sometimes the leader becomes more indispensable while the team becomes less confident.
In our latest episode of imPERFECT: Better After Broken, executive coach and leadership consultant Jeff Servello, PCC, RBLP-T, and clinical psychologist and executive coach Susan E. Hendrich, PsyD, explore the difference between care and control—and why creating the conditions for success matters more than controlling every step.
We talk about psychological safety, productive struggle, clear expectations, the anxiety underneath micromanagement, and the courage it takes to let someone learn.
A question worth asking yourself this week: Who’s getting stronger because of my leadership—me or the people I lead?
Watch the conversation, follow imPERFECT for more practical leadership insights, and share it with a leader who believes in developing others.
What are you carrying that nobody at work can see?
We talk a lot about workload. Meetings. Deadlines. Emails. Expectations.
But we don’t talk nearly enough about “the load.” Grief. Caregiving. Health concerns. Financial stress. Relationship strain. Parenting. Uncertainty.
The emotional weight of being the person everyone else turns to.
And leadership can add another layer: you’re carrying your own backpack while people are handing you pieces of theirs.
In this episode of imPERFECT: Better After Broken, executive coach and leadership consultant Jeff Servello PCC, RBLP-T, and clinical psychologist and executive coach Susan Hendrich, PsyD, explore what happens when workload sits on top of everything else we’re carrying.
We talk about the difference between being busy and burdened, the hidden emotional labor of leadership, why capable people often become very good at appearing fine, and how to care about people without absorbing what belongs to them. We also revisit the powerful Cleveland Clinic video, “Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care,” and the reminder behind it: we see people’s behavior, but we rarely know the whole story behind it.
So instead of immediately asking, “What’s wrong with this person?” What if we asked: “What might this person be carrying?” Compassion doesn’t mean lowering standards. Empathy isn’t the absence of accountability.
Understanding someone’s context can change how we enter the conversation while still being clear about what matters. And there’s another person whose load deserves our attention: ourselves. What are you carrying quietly? What has gotten heavier lately? Where might you need support? And what are you pretending is fine that isn’t?
NEW EPISODE: The Invisible Load of Leadership: What You’re Carrying That Nobody Sees.
imPERFECT: Better After Broken, with hosts Jeff Servello & Susan Hendrich.
Welcome to the premiere episode of the new radio podcast, imPERFECT: Better After Broken. Join us Sundays at 6 pm ET on Sandcastle Radio, America’s Hottest Online Variety & Music Station.
Hosts Jeff Servello and Dr. Susan Hendrich share raw stories of repair, resilience, and what it takes to rebuild stronger. This is a conversation about breaking, healing, and coming back with more clarity, more courage, and more purpose.
Sometimes the break is the breakthrough. And, your best may still be ahead.
When you feel stuck, it’s rarely because you lack options. It’s because your nervous system is running the show.
That’s where the mental Pause Button comes in.
Think of the mental pause Button as a built-in pattern interrupter—a way to stop the stress loop, create space, and choose a better response. Not later. In the moment.
The Pause Button isn’t about calming down for calm’s sake. It’s about regaining agency.
When you hit an internal wall and don’t know what to do next, the Button helps you shift energy, interrupt autopilot, and move forward differently.
The Pause Button Method (3 Simple Steps)
Step 1: Install the Button
Close your eyes for 10 seconds and imagine installing a physical pause button in your mind.
Make it yours:
Big or small
Blue, gold, red, sparkly
Subtle or bold
The design doesn’t matter. The function does.
This button exists for one reason: to interrupt a stuck pattern.
Step 2: Assign It a Job
Your Button’s job is to stop emotional autopilot—fear, frustration, irritation, reactivity.
When you press it:
Emotions don’t disappear
They simply stop driving
You create a gap—and in that gap lives choice, perspective, and agility.
This is the moment you remember:
I’m not stuck. I can pivot.
Step 3: Pair It with New Language
Agility isn’t activated by force. It’s activated by reframing.
Every time you press your Button, say this—out loud or silently:
“If this moment isn’t working, I’m allowed to change it.”
That one sentence gives you permission to pivot:
Mentally
Emotionally
Strategically
Now you’re back in the driver’s seat.
What Happens After You Pause
Once the stuck pattern is interrupted, ask better questions:
What else could be true?
What’s the next right move, not the perfect one?
Where is the opportunity inside this friction?
What version of me do I want leading right now?
If this were a chapter in my story, how do I want it to end?
You’re not rewriting the past. You’re rewriting your response.
And that’s where leaders grow.
Stuckness wants you to believe there’s only one ending. Agility reminds you: you’re the author, not the character.
So the next time you feel stuck— Press the Button. Pause the pattern. Choose differently.
Agility and the Unlit Candle: A Personal Story from My Mom
Here’s a personal story about agility—a story from my mom. It’s a story that lives at the center of my family history—my personal history. Years ago, she wrote it down and titled it “The Unlit Candle.” It’s a story about disruption, resilience, and the unexpected moments when life forces you to pivot into a different version of yourself.
1970: A New Start in Delaware The year was 1970. My parents were brand new to Delaware—young, hopeful, starting out with a baby girl and a handful of dreams. My mom had left her job at the University of Illinois to care for me. My dad had just started his first role as a chemist at DuPont. That’s why they moved to Wilmington. Money was tight. Life was simple, but it was good. My mom planned my first birthday with absolute joy. She baked a beautiful cake, decorated it with balloons and baby toys, and placed one large candle in the center—unlit, waiting for the moment. Family came in by train. They rented chairs for the living room. It felt like the beginning of something.
The Fire But the morning of the celebration, just before lunch, my dad said, “Hold up. I smell smoke.” He opened the apartment door, and a wall of thick black smoke poured in. In seconds, my mom grabbed me. Everyone ran out barefoot into the sunlit parking lot, watching as the fire department fought flames pouring out of the lower level. That beautiful cake never got sliced. That candle never got lit. Later that day, once the fire was out, they were allowed back in to salvage what they could. Much was destroyed—clothes, keepsakes, their few newlywed belongings. Even the wire hangers were covered in soot and had to be scrubbed by hand. My parents had no renters’ insurance, no safety net—just each other and a baby with a birthday that never happened.
Aftermath and Unexpected Generosity My parents relocated us to a motel. My grandmother and my aunt went back home. My mother called her family, embarrassed and overwhelmed. My Aunt Judy got on a plane immediately, traveling from Illinois to help. A local professor’s parents opened their ornate home to my parents and the baby—people they’d never met, because generosity has a way of finding people who need it. Eventually, my parents moved into a small bungalow and then into the home they still live in today. One disruption after another, and yet somehow they kept finding the next right move.
The Lesson My Mom Never Wrote That’s the part my mom never wrote explicitly—but what the story teaches: agility is born in moments you never asked for. The moments where the plan burns down, literally or figuratively, and you’re left standing in the parking lot with nothing but a baby on your hip and a cake you never got to eat.
The Meaning of the Unlit Candle The unlit candle became more than a story. It became a truth—a celebration that didn’t happen, plans that got erased, a version of life that didn’t survive the smoke. But also this truth: some candles don’t need to be lit to change your life. That day taught my mother—and eventually me—that agility isn’t a personal trait. It’s a response pattern. A willingness to regroup when you’re exhausted, to pivot when you’re heartbroken, to rebuild when you’ve already rebuilt more times than feels fair. It’s the ability to say, “Okay, this isn’t the story we planned, but it’s the story we’re in, and we’ll write the next chapter from here.”
Glimpses of a New Beginning The unlit candle reminds me that every disruption contains a glimpse of a new beginning—even if you don’t see it at first, even if it’s wrapped in smoke, even if it costs you more than you thought you could bear. My mom survived that season. My parents built a life from those ashes. They restored what they could. They released what they couldn’t. And they kept moving forward.
What Agility Really Looks Like That is agility. Not glamorous. Not poetic. Not Instagram-worthy. Just steady, human, persistent movement through uncertainty. And sometimes the most powerful symbol isn’t the candle you light—it’s the candle you never got to. I’m proud of my parents. And I think part of my agility comes from that moment when we lost everything in the fire.
___________________________
Wishing you glimpses of new beginnings, even when your candle remains unlit.
Susan Hendrich, with special thanks to my amazing Mom, Virginia Hertzenberg
