The leadership tax of being the “safe pair of hands”
“You’re such a safe pair of hands”
There’s a particular label that follows high performing leaders throughout their careers. It sounds like praise, it feels like trust, and it’s often said with genuine appreciation: “you’re such a safe pair of hands.”
Early in your career, this label is gold. It means you deliver. It means you’re reliable. It means people can count on you when things get messy. It means you’re the person leaders turn to when the stakes are high and the margin for error is low.
But at senior levels, this label starts to carry a hidden tax. One that quietly shapes your workload, your visibility, your opportunities, and even your leadership identity.
Being the “safe pair of hands” doesn’t just describe how you work. It starts to define what work you get. And that’s where the cost begins.
The hidden tax: you get the work that must succeed, not the work that moves your forward
When you’re known as the safe pair of hands, you become the default choice for:
High risk initiatives,
Messy turnarounds,
Cross functional firefighting,
Politically sensitive projects,
Work that requires emotional labour,
Work that others have failed to deliver, or
Work that is too important to give to someone untested.
This is not a coincidence. It’s pattern recognition. Leaders give you the work that must not fail.
But here’s the catch. The work that must not fail is rarely the work that accelerates your career. It’s stabilising work. It’s reputation protecting work. It’s organisational maintenance work.
It’s important but it’s not always strategic. And whilst you’re busy delivering flawlessly, others are being given:
Innovation portfolios,
Growth bets,
High visibility opportunities,
Executive sponsored initiatives, or
Work that shapes the future, not just protects the present.
This is the leadership tax of being the safe pair of hands. You get trusted, but you don’t always get stretched.
Why product and transformation leaders feel this tax more than most
Product and transformation leaders don’t operate in clean, well defined lanes. You operate in the fault lines of the organisation. The places where strategy, delivery, technology, operations, and politics collide.
Your day to day reality is shaped by:
Priorities that shift faster than the planning cycles,
Teams running at different levels of maturity,
Leaders who want progress but avoid trade offs,
Systems that weren’t designed to work together,
Decisions made with partial context, and
A level of scrutiny that intensifies the closer you get to the work.
Because you sit in these fault lines, you’ve developed capabilities most leaders never have to build. You’re the one who can:
Make sense of messy, contradictory inputs,
Translate across functions that don’t speak the same language,
Spot risks before they become political problems,
Hold the emotional temperature of the room,
See the downstream impact of decisions other treat as isolated, and
Keep momentum when everything around you is wobbling.
So when something is unravelling, you’re the one they call. When a project becomes politically delicate, you’re the one they trust. When an initiative is failing but “must be saved,” you’re the one they parachute in.
This isn’t because others can’t help. It’s because you’ve proven you can handle what the organisation finds hardest. This is competence. This is capability. This is leadership. But it’s also how the trap forms.
The more you demonstrate you can stabilise the work no one else wants, the more that work finds its way to you instead of the opportunities that would stretch your range, expand your influence, or elevate your role.
You become the person who rescues the present, not the person who shapes the future.
The emotional cost: you become the organisational shock absorber
Being the safe pair of hands comes with emotional labour that no one names:
You absorb pressure so others don’t have to,
You carry the consequences of decisions you didn’t make,
You stabilise teams who are burnt out or misaligned,
You mediate between leaders who aren’t speaking,
You hold the anxiety of executives who want certainty, and
You protect your team from organisational noise.
This labour is invisible. It’s unmeasured. It’s unacknowledged. But it’s heavy. And over time, it creates a quiet resentment. Not because you don’t want to help, but because you can feel the gap between the work you’re doing and the work you’re capable of.
The identity cost: when your reputation shrinks your leadership
There’s a point in every senior leader’s career where the way people talk about you stops feeling like recognition and starts feeling like a box. You hear things like:
“They’re the one we trust when things get messy,”
“If it absolutely has to land, give it to them,”
“They’re unshakeable, nothing rattles them,” or
“They’re the stabiliser.”
All of these are meant as praise. And they are praise. But they’re also a signal. When the organisation describes you in this way, they’re not talking about your range. They’re talking about your reliability. And reliability, whilst essential, is not what gets leaders promoted at senior levels. Senior roles are shaped by:
Setting direction, not just delivering it,
Influencing across power structures,
Shaping narratives that move executives,
Operating at enterprise altitude,
Creating momentum, not just maintaining it, and
Being known for judgment, not just steadiness.
Reliability is assumed. It’s the entry ticket. But when it becomes the headline of your leadership brand, something subtle happens. People stop seeing the full breadth of what you can do.
You become the person who can be trusted to fix things, which is valuable, but you’re no longer the person people instinctively turn to when they want to shape things.
That’s the trust identity cost. Your competence becomes so visible that your potential becomes invisible.
The opportunity cost: you get pulled into the present instead of the future
The “safe pair of hands” leaders often find themselves:
Running stabilisation programs instead of growth initiatives,
Fixing broken teams instead of building new ones,
Delivering legacy commitments instead of shaping new bets,
Managing risk instead of driving innovation, or
Being the glue instead of the architect.
This is not a reflection of your potential. It’s a reflection of the organisation’s dependency on your competence. But dependency is not the same as opportunity.
How high impact leaders break the “safe pair of hands” pattern
They stop saying yes automatically
Your instinct is to help, to deliver, and the stabilise. But high impact leaders pause and ask:
“Is this mine to own?”
“Is this aligned with my next step?”
“Is this work or is this a pattern?”
“What am I being chosen for - competence or potential?”
This pause is where the shift begins.
They negotiate the scope, not just the task
Instead of accepting the whole problem, they say:
“I’ll take this on, but only if we clarify X,”
“I can lead this, but I won’t carry Y,”
“I’ll stabilise this, but someone else needs to own the long term.”
This signals leadership, not compliance.
They make their strategic ambition visible
Not through self promotion but through clarity. They say:
“Here’s the kind of work I want to lead next,”
“Here’s where I can create the most value,”
“Here’s the portfolio I want to shape.”
Executives can’t sponsor what they can’t see.
They build range, not just reliability
They intentionally develop:
Narrative skills,
Enterprise thinking,
Influence across power structures,
Strategic framing,
Decision orchestration, and
Vision setting.
Range is what moves you from safe to senior.
They let others carry the weight
This is the hardest part. You have to let:
Teams struggle,
Peers step up,
Leaders feel the consequences of their choices, and
The system experience its own friction.
Not because you don’t care, but because you’re no longer the shock absorber.
If you’re feeling the tax, you’re not alone
Every high performing leader reaches this point. It’s not a sign you’re failing. It’s a sign you’ve outgrown the version of leadership the organisation still expects from you.
You’re ready for work that stretches you, not just work that needs you. You’re ready for work that shapes the future, not just stabilises the present. You’re ready to be valued for your range, not just your reliability. And that shift is entirely within reach.
If you want to move from being a “safe pair of hands” to being an enterprise level leader, let’s work on this together. Here are three ways:
Influencing for Impact: This practical 2-day workshop is for you if you want to influence a decision maker, influence a change in customer or colleague behaviour, or influence someone to buy something from you,
Executive and Leadership Team Coaching: Work directly with Lai-Ling to problem solve for your specific situation in a confidential setting. This is for you if you want to develop and execute on a game plan that is 100% tailored to you, or
Leadership Development: Invest in the product and transformation leaders in your company with leadership development that is customised for their role. This is for you if you want your people to learn about people and politics.