Episode 268: When Leaders Become the Bottleneck (and How to Get Out of the Way) with Brooke Dukes

Darrin Peppard (00:00.706)

Hey everybody, welcome into episode 268 of the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. I want to start with something that might hit a little close to home for some of you. Recently, I was working with a leader who told me, I can't get my work done, Darren, because everybody keeps bringing everything to me. And as we unpacked that, she realized something pretty powerful. You see, she wasn't just overwhelmed.

She certainly was overwhelmed, but she wasn't just overwhelmed. She had actually become the bottleneck on her team. And she certainly hasn't done this intentionally. And it's not because she isn't capable. I mean, the reality is she is very good at what she does. But somewhere along the way, everything started running through her. Everything had to cross her desk. Every decision.

Every answer to a question had to come to her. And if we're honest about it, leaders, a lot of us have been there before. We wanna help. We wanna be that person who steps in and supports. We wanna be the one who makes the decision. We wanna be the one to solve the problem. And if you're a long time listener, you know that for me, that was one of my biggest struggles early in my principalship. I thought being a servant leader meant

solve everyone's problems, have all the answers. When we think that way, before we know it, nothing moves without us. Nothing gets accomplished without our presence.

Darrin Peppard (01:48.424)

One of the things that I think I've learned, both through experience, but then also through working with so many leaders around the country, is we don't as leaders become the bottleneck because we want control. I think very, very rarely are people genuinely micromanagers, genuinely want and desire all that control. I really don't think by and large that's why we become the bottleneck.

think we become the bottleneck because we lack systems that create clarity. It's as simple as that. We have to have systems that create clarity. And that's exactly why I want to talk about our sponsors right here in this spot. Because both of our sponsors, Digicoach and HeyTutor, man, they are both very good at helping leaders build systems so everything doesn't depend on the leader.

Let's start with Digicoach. If you're a school or district leader, I want you to think about your classroom walkthroughs for a second. Are they truly aligned to your priorities? Are they really capturing meaningful feedback? Are you seeing trends over time that allow you to actually go and coach and help your teachers? Or are you relying on memory, on your notes? Maybe you're just trying to carry it all yourself?

Because if that's the case, that is a bottleneck. A Digicoach gives you a simple, powerful way to align your walkthroughs to your instructional focus, capture feedback in real time, and actually track growth across your system. So instead of everything living in your head, you're building clarity across your team. You're building a system of clarity across your team. And when your team has that level of clarity,

and has a system that allows for that level of clarity, they don't need to come to you for every decision. Now, if you wanna learn more, head over to digicoach.com, let them know you heard about them here on the Leading Into Leadership podcast for some special partner pricing and check it out for yourself. Honestly, I think Digicoach is one of the very best tools out there for instructional leadership. Again, that's digicoach.com.

Darrin Peppard (04:14.303)

The same idea applies when we think about supporting students. Because if every intervention and every support plan, every solution ends up falling on your teachers or on your leadership team, that becomes another bottleneck. And that's where HeyTutor comes in. HeyTutor partners with schools and districts to provide high quality, flexible tutoring solutions that are aligned to your goals. And we're talking about real support for students here without putting more.

on your teacher's plates. Because, let's be honest, your teachers don't need more to do. They need support systems around them so they can do what they do best. And when you build those systems, you don't just help students. You reduce stress across your entire staff. Here's maybe my favorite part. HeyTutor, in providing this high quality, flexible tutoring solution, they take

all of it off your plate. They do the recruiting, they do the hiring, they are the actual employer for the tutor, not you or your district, which means it's one less thing that you have to do in order to get the solution in place. Believe me, folks, it is absolutely a fantastic solution. If you're looking for a better way to support your students, go hit the show notes link for heytutor.com.

and see how they can partner with you or with your school district to provide that level of support. Because at the end of the day, folks, great leadership is not about doing everything. It's about building systems so everything gets done without it all depending on you. And that's exactly where we're headed in today's episode. My guest is Brooke Dukes, and we're gonna dive into what it really looks like when leaders become the bottleneck.

Brooke has some incredible systems and some incredible concepts around how you can build trust and clarity and finally get out of the way so your team can truly thrive. So let's get to it. I'll see you on the other side.

Darrin Peppard (00:00)

So recently I was working with one of the leadership teams that I had the opportunity to support and one of the individuals as she and I had some pretty deep conversation around work that had been happening within her department, we came to the conclusion that everyone was 100 % dependent on her, not just as the leader, not just as the decision maker, but simply

anything that needed to be done had to come across her desk. In many cases, she didn't do that on purpose. But, nonetheless, it had happened. And she realized that she had become this bottleneck.

I'm really excited about today's episode because I have Brooke Dukes joining me. And what's so cool about Brooke's work is she leans in very specifically around that topic. When you as the leader become the bottleneck. When you as the leader are the person who keeps your team from being successful. Oftentimes we don't realize it. Sometimes we have to find it out in unique ways like.

the example that I shared to lead us in, but nonetheless, we're gonna have that conversation about effective teams and about how we as leaders can get out of the way and allow our teams to really be effective. So Brooke, with that, welcome into Leaning into Leadership.

Brooke Dukes (01:31)

Well, thank you so much. Love that. Yeah. And your story really hit home, which is why we deal with that predominantly in our company, because that is one of the number one things that leaders face is being the bottleneck.

Darrin Peppard (01:49)

And I think, like I said here just a moment ago, and I'm certain I was guilty of it at times, no question, whether I realized it or not, I think it happens, one, unintentionally, and two, or most of the time, unintentionally, and two, without us even realizing it. I mean, in the situation I described, when we came to that conclusion, it was really me driving us to that conclusion, but it was a glass shattering moment for that individual.

Brooke Dukes (01:54)

Thank you.

Darrin Peppard (02:17)

I don't think she realized that number one, where we got to this conversation, Brooke, honestly, was she said, Darren, I can't get the work done. I'm supposed to be getting done because people come to me with stuff all the time. And then we started digging in and you could hear the glass shatter like, wow, that's my fault. That's not their fault. So, but before we dig further, Brooke, here's what I want to do.

for my listeners, for my viewers on YouTube who don't know you, tell us just a little bit about you, maybe a little bit about the work that you do and that you lead at your company.

Brooke Dukes (02:52)

So this is my fourth business that I've started. what we're doing, and I have the same spine, the same framework I have stayed in throughout 25 years. So my background is in psychology, behavioral science, NLP, and human design.

And what makes this company so different than the other three is one, is my passion project. I've taken everything that I've learned with Fortune 100 companies. I was a consultant for very, very large organizations for many years. And I have put that into a container so that I can support founders.

and leaders of small and mid-sized businesses. So the way that we do that, we do that in a few different ways. One is we have a container called Success by Design. And that is for leaders who are leading teams and who are experiencing exactly what your client is experiencing, they're the bottleneck. And a lot of times you're right. They have so many other reasons.

We're just not growing. My team isn't working well together. You know, all these different reasons. And it all boils down to they're the bottleneck. And so we address that on a weekly basis with our leaders. Within Success by Design, we are launching in a month and a half our AI leadership operating system called OZ.

And that is going to allow our leaders in between the time that we're together to use it on a daily basis to really integrate what they're learning in success by design into their daily leadership life and into their personal life. Because if they're anything like me, my bottleneck to just not stay at the office. Every, I had created that in every area of my life.

Darrin Peppard (04:50)

Yep.

Brooke Dukes (04:54)

And I, and it was all about control. mean, that really is, and I get it as a founder myself at the beginning, you do, you need to have your hands in everything. Cause you're getting it off the ground. might be you and one or two other people. You're like little ninjas running around doing everything. And you really do need to be that touch point. But then there's that point when you hit about six employees, you really need to look at.

Do you need to be controlling it anymore? Do you need to be that touch point? Do you need to be involved in all the decisions? And typically the answer is no, but you don't know how to pull yourself out of it because it's the only way you've ever led.

And so we really support leaders and helping them. What is what are the rules around decision? How are you going to keep yourself and your team accountable? What does that look like from where the priorities? Because a lot of times when you're the bottleneck, priorities are very skewed. You end up putting out fires constantly because there's no other way around it when the buck stops with you. So it's really creating that

leadership operating system so that you put systems and processes in place that take you out of the mix. Because what happens with the leader when they're the bottleneck, they're so busy working in the business that they cannot do the large visionary things that they have to do to move their company forward. So even if revenue is climbing, which a lot of times it's not, but let's just say it is,

Growth feels heavy. Unconsciously, you're thinking, if we go, I'm not going to be able to handle it if we grow anymore. So you end up not only being the bottleneck, but you're sabotaging your own company, unconsciously, because you know, you're stretched so thin, there's no way you could do anymore. So there's a lot of different, as you can tell, like you, I am passionate about this, because I've lived it. I am just not.

Darrin Peppard (06:56)

Yeah.

Brooke Dukes (06:58)

Preaching from the mountaintop. I know. I have been in it in every area of my life.

Darrin Peppard (07:05)

Yeah, well, know, my listeners, longtime listeners have heard the story several times as a, know, my background is in K-12 education. I worked my way up all the way to superintendent. But when I became a high school principal, moving from the assistant principal to the principal role, I got this crazy thought in my head that I had to be everything to everyone. And I see that so often with so many of the leaders that I coach in all

in all different walks of life, but it's that, I call it superhero syndrome, right? I need to throw the cape on and I need to come and I need to do it all. I'm gonna save everyone. And I think that comes from a few different places. I I have my own theories on that, but I would imagine there are probably a handful or a bunch of leaders in your success by design community.

that maybe fall into that trap too of feeling like they have to be the superhero or the other one is the misunderstood definition of servant leader where they think that means, I have to do everything for everyone when that's not servant leadership. Servant leadership is empowering others to do for themselves. So let's maybe talk a little of, mean that.

That was one of my big mistakes and I see it so I'm sure you do. Let's talk about that, that I gotta be the superhero leader.

Brooke Dukes (08:27)

Yeah, there's a few different nuances to that. Yes, absolutely. I have to be the superhero. And it comes back to proving your worth. So many times that is what we're doing and we don't even know it, especially as a woman. We were taught that if you just outwork the men, you'll get the recognition, you'll get the title, all the things.

Well, that's not necessarily true. And it becomes more about proving my value. If I am everything to everyone, I am invaluable. Like that shows that instead of just really recognizing just you being is valuable.

Everything else is just icing on the cake. And you, the other thing that I feel like when you're busy being the superhero, guess what your team's not getting? You're not empowering them. You're not letting them be in their area of genius to be their own superhero. So when you switch it around like that, there's two things that I always say when I'm working with a leader. And one is when you do something that was meant to

someone else's responsibility. So let's say one team member comes to you, they ask you this, it should honestly be put to another team member, but you take care of it. You're doing three people a disservice. The person that came to you, because it wasn't meant to be yours, someone else would have been better suited for it. Also yourself, because typically you don't have the bandwidth to do it.

and you shouldn't be doing it, it's taking you away from something that you should be doing. And also the person whose responsibility it should have been. Because you're taking that away from them, that growth opportunity, that opportunity for them to be the hero and to add value and to support someone else in the team, you've taken that away. That really shifts perspective to people in that when they can really look at, I'm not just, I'm not being a hero in the assistance. I'm kind of...

being the anti-hero, honestly, for all three of us. That's a big piece that people need to really look at when they're doing it. And the other thing is, when you empower your team, they step up, they meet you, or they don't, which is also something that you need to know.

If you're busy carrying around all the balls, you don't have the information that you need. Your team may or may not be qualified. How would you know? Allow them with a safety net to be able to do their job, to be able to step up, be empowered, to make decisions and all the things that...

enable them to just be invaluable to you so that then you can work on what you need to. So many times I've worked with a gentleman, had a $90 million here in Texas commercial construction company. He's 65 years old. He wants to leave.

He doesn't have anything in place to continue on his legacy. This is his baby. He feels like now I'm giving my baby to a stranger that could abuse them. So now we're backpebbling after 35 years of him being in business to be able to put those systems and processes in place, which we are doing, but it's much more painful after 35 years than it is if we would have done it when he had a million dollars in revenue.

Darrin Peppard (11:58)

Right, yeah.

Brooke Dukes (12:15)

which is really where, in my opinion, companies need to start looking. When you hit that million dollar revenue, if you are still the one needing to give approval to everything, you are the bottleneck and you are hurting your company's growth.

Darrin Peppard (12:30)

Absolutely, no, I think that that's really powerful. You're making me think about a couple other individuals that I'm working with, a couple other clients who they tend to fall into that, you know, I'm gonna do it all. Maybe it's a mentality, maybe it's just this belief that, you know, it helps me feel needed. You you talked about proving your worth. And I think sometimes when,

when it's not the situation where you're the founder or the creator of the business, but maybe one where you've been hired into that leadership role, in many ways, yes, you want to prove your value, but sometimes you want to prove somebody right or you want to prove somebody wrong. It might be I'm going to prove the person who hired me right or the person who said, boy, it shouldn't have been you that got that job. I'm going to prove them wrong. And that leads us into what we've just been talking about. And I think another piece that

can be mentioned there too, when you are being that person, the example you shared of the person who brings you something and then the third person should be involved, you run the risk of your employees looking at you as a micromanager. When maybe you don't mean to, but you're actually being a micromanager by not allowing them to go and do the things that they should be doing. And instead, you go do the things that

only you can do. It makes me think of a story, Brooke, where, and it was one of the very first episodes of this podcast, so 260 or so episodes ago, a county sheriff in Colorado, Brett Shrolin, who he's somebody I've gotten to know over the years, somebody I have a really good relationship with. But when Brett first became the sheriff, in Colorado, by the way, any unincorporated land, the sheriff is the de facto

fire chief. Well, there was a fire and he's down digging trenches. I mean, he's doing what he had done as a deputy. And one of his employees said, Sheriff, what are you doing? He's like, well, we need to fight this fire. And he said, you don't. You need to be up there leading us. We'll take care of this. This isn't your role. We need you up there leading.

And I think sometimes I say all that to get to the bottleneck. I think sometimes when we become the bottleneck, it's because we're not up there doing the work we should be doing. Kind of at that, if you want to use the 10,000 foot mark, or I like to call it leading from the balcony, let's dig in on that and talk a little bit more about how leaders can just get the heck out of the way so that teams can be more effective.

Brooke Dukes (15:09)

Yeah. I find prior to us creating this and I would work, I did a lot of executive coaching clients and all of that and every single time. And I'm sure your client felt the same way. Yes. It was like, that's amazing. I get it. But then the fear hits in, but how, how do I do that? Like everything's going to drop like this is. And so you really have to.

put in system checkpoints, systems and processes. It's not going to happen overnight. We do it within the first 30 days. You will have decision rules. You will have accountability. You will be able to lessen your load and really allow your team to be empowered. But it takes a system.

it takes a leadership operating system. It's not just no one's going to be like, okay, today I'm just gonna stop making the decisions and team, you just go do this. I mean, no one's gonna do this, especially if you're right. Yeah, and so don't beat yourself up like, my, have no idea how to do this and I'm scared. Of course you are, every leader is.

Darrin Peppard (16:07)

I'm finally going to take the vacation I've always wanted.

Brooke Dukes (16:19)

If the business wasn't built like that from the beginning, then you have to start somewhere. You have to put the systems and the processes and the accountability and the rule, all the things in place so that yes, there still are checks and balances. You're just not letting your hand off the wheel, covering up your eyes and saying, I'm hoping for the best. I mean, that's not what we want to do with this. It really is a process so that you, you're not going to feel comfortable.

Through the hope because it's giving up control. I get that that has been a theme of mine my entire life is Let it go bro. I'll let go of the control and You're going to at least it will be tolerable Uncomfort

and you can see the results. You can watch your team grow. You can watch how people step into their power. You can then start, because in my opinion, the number one success strategy for any leader is really self-care, is being able to show up as your best self in your genius and doing what you were put here on this earth to do.

In order to do that, you have to get rid of all of the other things. And part of that is also, when you're out, when you are the bottleneck and you're putting out all the fires and you're the last person that has to make the decision on everything, you're typically burning out. You're typically overwhelmed. You're normally not taking care of yourself the way that you should.

And that right there, that's your number one asset. You, your body, your mindset, your health is your number one asset and you're ruining it. And I know this from, I gave myself COVID and shingles at the same time. That's what, yeah, we had a really successful business and I said, I'm like, okay.

Darrin Peppard (18:10)

There's a daily double for you.

Brooke Dukes (18:16)

This is what I need. My human design is I'm a five one manifesting generator. I need to teach through experience. I can't teach theories and philosophy that I have not experienced. I have to teach from being in the middle of the mess as I'm doing it. Here's what I'm experiencing. And that's when we created this container. like this, I know this is not just me.

Every leader I've talked to at a particular level has felt this and we want to be able to support them.

Darrin Peppard (18:45)

I think that's really an important piece and it's something to really, really lean into there. if I'm one of those leaders who is starting to realize, okay, I am creating the bottleneck and I just listened to what you said, I probably took away that Brooke thinks I need and Brooke believes that I need a leadership operating system. So Brooke, tell me more. let's peek behind the curtain a little bit and tell me like,

What does that look like or how do you help somebody get started with that? So leaders that are listening can maybe at least visualize a little bit what that operating system might look like.

Brooke Dukes (19:22)

So basically within what happens when you join six and what we've done is we've priced it in a way having done executive coaching. I've been anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 a month. So it is not cost effective for a small to mid-sized business typically to hire someone like me to be able to coach them through this process. That's why we created Success by Design. It's $297 a month.

If you are leading a team and you have a million dollars of revenue, you can afford that. You can't afford not to afford it. And if you can't afford it, you have some other issues that we probably need to talk about too. So first thing is in the first, as soon as you join, in the first 48 hours, we start you on the process by doing a decision audit. And you'll have

You'll have some surveys. I mean, we get you into really helping you. It's granular right from the beginning. We do a decision audit. Then we look at your processes, all of that before we've even had the first call.

So then you come into a community of people, of leaders that are all leading teams, that all have a minimum of a million dollars in revenue, that are experiencing what you're experiencing. And so we have weekly calls with various themes all around supporting you and being able to have your company grow without you needing to have constant involvement.

That is we do. How do we remove you from the equation so your company can exponentially grow without burning yourself out, without overwhelm, without you being the bottleneck, without you sabotaging? And every week we go through and we work on one of those themes and we have hot seats and...

all everything that is needed for a leader to create those systems and processes within their own company to be able to remove themselves so that they can grow at the fastest, depending upon their industry, all of that. They know that I am doing everything I can do to grow as fast as humanly possible because I am no longer the bottleneck.

And then within that, so that is weekly, they will have, they'll jump on a call and they'll, it's 90 minute call. Within that on a daily basis, they have OZ, which is our AI leadership operating system. So every day they can go in and they can even, down to the granular, I made X decision. Here's how I felt when I made it. Here's the logic behind it. Here's what happened. Here was the outcome.

Here's, and they can actually track, it will show them on all of their decisions as they're putting those in. Here's what worked, here's what didn't. Because what we're teaching them to do is, here's, you are your number one success. You are your guru. You don't need me, you don't need anyone else. You need systems and processes. You need guardrails to figure out how to do that.

But you're learning how to trust yourself. So you're not constantly re-deciding things. So you made this decision on Monday, now you're second guessing yourself, should I do it? You make a different decision on Wednesday. No more of that. We're stopping that. Within the first 30 days, you will stop that. You will learn to trust yourself.

and we're able to show you how you best make decisions, how you best communicate, where you're in your state, all of those accountability systems. So it's probably way more than what you wanted, but it's a whole 12 month theme of helping you and every single month you have outcomes and you have tangible results that you can see.

Darrin Peppard (23:14)

No, that's right.

Brooke Dukes (23:26)

I shows you that exactly. We have KPIs that you're looking at. So it's not your typical, I try not to call it a community. A lot of times communities are great, but it's about connection and feeling.

That's fine. This is about connection, but this is real, like exactly what needs to be done. You're held accountable by peers. You're looking at KPIs. You are watching the needle. You're watching your company grow. You're watching your team. So that's success by design. And then for some, we do it really on a selection basis.

leaders that will say, okay, now I want to incorporate this into my company and we'll take it on as a consulting engagement if it fits within what we're looking at and what we want to work with. So hopefully that helps to explain that.

Darrin Peppard (24:14)

Yeah, no, absolutely.

No, and I would say too, I mean, you know, as somebody who, you know, five years ago, you know, stepped out from, you know, a regular, you know, nine to five type of thing, you know, or I was a K-12 educator, it nine to five, it was like seven to seven, really. But stepping away from that and then into this entrepreneurial space that I've been in for the last five years, being in...

one of those types of mastermind.

community, but you're right. I mean, it's got to be a little bit further. The one that I'm a part of, there's so much accountability to the other members within the group and so much growth and learning from within there. It sounds like an absolutely fantastic space that you guys have and obviously adding Oz in there with your, you know, with that AI tool is super cool. Brooke, our time has just absolutely flown by, which, you know, hey, when we get a chance to talk about leadership teams, that's what's going to happen, I think, for probably both of us.

We're at that point in the show now. I'm gonna ask you the same question I ask everybody here on the show. It's the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. So Brooke, how are you leaning into leadership right now?

Brooke Dukes (25:18)

think the way that we're leaning, think really with we use what and that's how we created Oz. We use every single person on my team. We use what we teach.

And so that's how we discovered we needed Oz because we were using ChatGPT, which was great. And it was, we even created a little bot within ChatGPT, but it was limited. We wanted, I'm like, here's what I need. And if I need this as a leader, I know people in Success by Design need this. They need an AI tool that doesn't forget them, that always knows it is like they're one-on-one executive coach.

with the KPIs involved, you can see it as graphs and I'm not the IT person, I have an amazing IT person. But so that's how we leaned in. It's like, is what I want to make myself more accountable. I wanna watch how I'm integrating this. I wanna watch everything that's happening. And that's why we created it.

Darrin Peppard (26:18)

I think it's fantastic. People are going to want to check that out. They're going to want to get in touch with you. How do people find Brookdews?

Brooke Dukes (26:19)

Thank you.

Well, you can go to our website, brookmdukes.com. I am Brooke Dukes on every single social media and I have a podcast called Burn On Not Out.

Darrin Peppard (26:36)

There we go. Awesome stuff. We'll put all that down in the show notes so people can get to that very easily. Brooke, thank you so much for joining me here on Leaning Into Leadership. This has been a blast.

Brooke Dukes (26:45)

Thank you so much.

Man, what an amazing conversation with Brooke. I really appreciate her coming onto the show. I was really grateful to have an opportunity to have a couple of conversations with Brooke over the last couple of months.

Darrin Peppard (06:39.937)

and just learn a little bit more about that bottleneck piece. So much of how Brooke thinks and how I think really align quite well and I think you got that with the conversation she and I had here on the episode. So get down on the show notes folks and get connected with Brooke. Check out the stuff that Brooke has for you down there in the show notes. And now it's time for a pep talk. So had a conversation with another leader that I support earlier this week.

And one of the things that he shared with me was one of the members of his leadership team had taken some steps that he, as the leader, was not quite ready to have take place. You see, he'd been out of the building for a few days and one of his leadership team members decided that he would go ahead and move forward with some decisions that

that certainly the team knew were coming, but that the leader was not actually ready to have happen. Now, I think this happens more frequently than we realize. This happened to me a couple of times as the building administrator when one of my assistant principals would go and do something that I wasn't quite ready for us to roll out. And here's what it comes down to. And this is kind of the core of the pep talk today. I wrote a blog post on this by the way too, and I'll link it in the show notes for you, but.

The reality is sometimes as a leader, we need to be thinking four or five steps ahead. And early in our leadership career, often we're only thinking about the next step. We don't think about what will this step do three, four, five moves down the road? What impact might this have on the people in our organization? And how does this impact something we think we're gonna be doing three years from now? You see,

I worked under a superintendent, the one who hired me to be a building principal, and he was the absolute master. Every time we were in meetings, I found myself thinking, man, Paul is playing chess and the rest of us are playing checkers. He was always five or six moves ahead of every single one of us in the room. It took me a while to learn. It took me a while to...

Darrin Peppard (09:03.318)

Get the concept of how you do that. And really it's all about being strategic. And strategic leadership is not playing checkers. It is absolutely playing chess. So the first step in this entire process, if you want to be that strategic leader, if you want to be that one that people are saying, ooh man, you are four or five moves ahead of everyone else, start by getting on the balcony. Get that.

Step up, get up to that 5, 10, 15,000 feet level and take a look at what's happening in all parts of your organization. You can't be a strategic leader if you're stuck in the weeds. That's my challenge for you this week, folks. Thanks so much for listening to me here on the Leaning into Leadership podcast. Get out there, have a road to awesome week