I'm a 'Roll up Your Sleeves' Leader – Here's How it's Paying Off

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Key Takeaways

- Hands-on leadership works best when curiosity replaces control and questions drive clarity.

- Collaboration builds long-term performance; solving together beats stepping in with answers.

- Balance coaching patience with urgency to deliver results and maintain accountability.

A few weeks ago, I headed on the road to work closely with a few of my teammates in streamlining a mounting list of priorities and projects.

In many organizations, the CEO who travels to ‘help’ a direct report with their workload could be seen as a vote of no confidence. But my team knows that close collaboration is central to my leadership approach — not to control the process or the outcome, but to provide them with coaching and guidance that ultimately empowers them in their role.

When my teammates needed support, I knew that giving them home court advantage would make the situation feel more manageable and reinforce that we were in it together. I was there to help, not take over.

Rolling up sleeves without stepping on toes

There’s a fine line between being helpful and disruptive. When a CEO swoops in, the results can be counterproductive. Research shows that companies perform better when leaders empower their teams.

But enabling people doesn’t mean a leader is confined to the strategy lane. Some of the most successful companies are led by those who aren’t afraid to dive into the details. The real challenge is finding the balance between knowing when to roll up your sleeves and when to step back.

For me, true hands-on leadership isn’t about doing people’s jobs or making decisions for them. I know I lack the context and detailed knowledge of the situation needed to manage it alone — and that’s not my goal anyway. I want to show up in a way that enables progress, builds capability and still leaves ownership squarely where it belongs.

That balance comes down to three pillars of hands-on leadership: root cause curiosity, problem-solving collaboration and delicately balancing patient coaching and results.

When applied together, they create a leadership approach that supports people, strengthens performance and ultimately delivers better outcomes. Here’s how I put those principles into practice as the CEO of a community of veterinary hospitals.

Get curious about the best way to help

When someone on your team needs help, the most valuable thing you can do isn’t jumping in with solutions — it’s asking better questions about where the real challenge lies.

Your greatest asset is your distance from the day-to-day friction. While a team member might be focused on a specific issue, your high-level perspective allows you to see the entire landscape. By asking probing questions rather than barking orders, you help them look up from the ‘weeds’ to see the true source of the problem.

The key is to hire people who know their roles better than you do, and then support them when they hit roadblocks. But spotting the signs of overwhelm requires knowing people’s subtle signals. When you’ve built real relationships, you notice when someone goes quiet, loses focus or starts missing timelines they’d normally hit. Those signs are invitations to dig into what’s really going on, so you can help in a way that moves the work forward without undermining trust or ownership.

Collaborate for collective success

As a leader, you always have the option to make a call or take something off someone’s plate and do it yourself. You might even get faster results. But I’ve learned this approach rarely creates the conditions for long-term performance or true growth. In fact, micromanagement has been shown to erode morale, hinder productivity and damage creativity.

That’s why I spend so much energy thinking about how I show up for my people. Instead of defaulting to providing answers, I focus on the ‘how’ of our work. How are we communicating? How are we collaborating together? Is my feedback actually landing — or am I overwhelming someone with content when what they really need is context?

You must meet people where they are, working shoulder-to-shoulder to ensure they have the room to internalize the process. It’s about saying: “You’ve got your piece, I’ve got mine and we’re both working toward the same end. How do we get there?”

When you get the ‘how’ right, you stop pushing for high performance and start cultivating it. By collaborating and leading through influence rather than authority, you build a team that upholds a shared standard of excellence, instead of merely following instructions to get to an outcome they think you want.

Balance the patience to coach with the urgency to deliver

A collective focus on excellence is important because collaboration and development can’t always be pri