What the new Superman movie taught me about leadership…

Absolutely nothing.

I went to see the latest instalment over the weekend.
Nostalgic nods to the Christopher Reeve original.
Sweeping rescues.
Noble sacrifice.
All very stirring.

But as I sat there munching popcorn, I realised:
Superman may be a great superhero, but he’d make a terrible leader.

He’s still doing everything himself.
Flying in. Fixing problems. Carrying the weight of the world, literally.
And in doing so, robbing everyone else of their agency.

Because here’s the truth:
When leaders always swoop in to save the day…
💥 Teams stop solving their own problems.
💥 Capability flatlines.
💥 Confidence drains away.

And worst of all?
You, the leader, become the bottleneck.

Leadership isn’t about being the saviour.
It’s about helping others become capable of saving themselves.

That’s where the real growth happens for them and for you.

I see this again and again in my coaching work:
Founders and senior leaders whose businesses depend on them.
Clients look to them. Teams lean on them.
They’ve trained everyone, inadvertently, to treat them like Superman.

But they’re exhausted.
Their people are underdeveloped.
And the business can’t scale.

So we get to work:
🧭 Mapping where their support adds value and where it undermines it.
🔍 Spotting rescue behaviours in the wild.
🧠 Rewiring habits: coaching not solving, delegating not directing.
👥 Building a team that doesn’t need a hero because it has leaders.

Because in the real world, great leadership isn’t heroic.
It’s strategic. Intentional. And sometimes gloriously invisible.

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👉 Feel like you're stuck in Superman mode?
I help leaders build businesses that don’t revolve around them.
DM me, or book a free discovery session (link in the comments below).

Pic - apparently that's what I'd look like if I were Superman. Thank goodness for the world, I'm not.