Competence Hoarding: What to Do When One Person Holds All the Answers

Every time you try to document a critical process or get someone else trained, there's always an excuse or something more urgent. And that person stays exactly where they are: indispensable, untouchable, and immovable. In this episode, I break down competence hoarding. It's the team member who won't document the critical process, the leader who never quite teaches you enough to operate without them, or the promotion going to someone you just trained because you're “too valuable” in your position. If you're on the receiving end, you're being kept dependent. If you have a hoarder on your team, you're one resignation away from catastrophe. And if you're the one holding on, you're operating from scarcity instead of building a team that can actually function. Key Takeaways: How to recognize competence hoarding when you see it (whether you're experiencing it or doing it yourself) Why knowledge shared is not power lost, even when everything feels scarce What succession planning actually means: being able to name who could step up tomorrow, not someday The question to ask yourself about what you're holding onto and what happens when you let it go This episode is for you if you've ever watched knowledge stay locked in one person's head and wondered what it's costing everyone else. Want to explore what systemic change could look like in your organization? Visit sparkthefirm.com to learn more about working together. __ Strong Face is for leaders caught between caring for their people and enforcing a system that wasn't built to do so, without losing themselves in the process.   Hosted by Tamara Steward, organizational consultant and founder of Spark the Firm, each episode takes one situation you're likely living through at work right now or have seen before, and shows you what's actually broken, and what's yours to fix.