Givers and the Takers

Every organisation has them, the givers and the takers. You can spot them quickly when a leader begins to drift.

Leadership drift happens quietly. It’s when leaders step down from leading and start doing. They fill the gaps, take on others’ responsibilities, and convince themselves it’s “just helping out.”

Over time, what starts as support becomes substitution, and the leader’s role blurs into the team’s work.

That’s when the givers and takers emerge.

Takers are the ones who lean back. They watch their leader step in and think, How great, they’ll handle it. They confuse the leader’s over-functioning with generosity, unaware they’re feeding the very behaviour that will eventually burn their leader out.

Givers, on the other hand, lean forward. They recognise when their leader is carrying too much and step in to steady them. They say things like, You don’t need to do that, I’ve got it. Givers help leaders stay in the right altitude, guiding the team from above rather than grinding alongside them.

The difference between the two isn’t attitude, it’s awareness.

Givers see leadership as a shared ecosystem. They understand that when a leader drifts too low, the whole team loses strategic visibility, and decisions become reactive rather than intentional.

A recent MIT Sloan study found that leaders who spend more than 60% of their week on operational work report a 40% drop in strategic clarity and decision effectiveness. The pattern is clear: the lower you drift, the less you lead.

At RDL, we describe this as the “Altitude Trap.” When leaders descend into the details, they feel useful but lose perspective. It’s the organisational equivalent of a pilot stepping out of the cockpit mid-flight to serve drinks in the cabin. Everyone appreciates it, right up until turbulence hits.

True leadership requires the courage to stay high enough to see the system, not just the symptoms.

RDL’s top tip for avoiding leadership drift: Build givers around you.

Cultivate people who challenge you to lead, not do. Encourage them to protect your altitude by owning what’s theirs and helping you stay focused on what only you can do.

Givers lift leaders. Takers drain them.

The legacy of great leadership isn’t built by how much you do, it’s built by how well you empower others to rise with you.

RDL, Celebrating 20 years of creating leadership legacies.