I Learned to Lead, The Day I Stopped Everyone Else’s Work

By Samantha (Summra) Ahmad

Content Manager at Remote Scouts

I’m the kind of person who believes that to be a good leader, I need to be the most reliable person in the room. If a team member was falling behind, I stepped in like a mother hen. Fussing over my team member’s confusion, and solved it for them. It was more like a badge of honor until I realized it was limiting my growth, and the burnout was lurking just around the corner. 

I've worked closely with founders and leadership teams and noticed the same pattern. Even the most capable leaders spend too much time on execution.

In my role as Content Strategist at Remote Scouts, where we provide operational support through global remote teams, I found the opportunity to shift that balance. 

Here, a very different skill is required: the ability to design the work. It is still one of the most underrated skills for growth, in my opinion. 

So, the shift happened for me when I changed my perspective from “How do I get this done?” I ask, “Why does this require me at all?”

I had my team with me. Even though I delegated the tasks on the Planner app to my team members, and by that, I don’t mean the task distribution, no. I mean the process and the workflows. I did not want to repeat the same instructions or review the same type of blogs over and over again. It created dependency rather than delegating. 

So, I began documenting everything. The processes, communication standards, decision-making criteria, and benchmarks were allocated. Period. It was tedious at first, sure, but it quickly made my team members move forward without your constant involvement.

I gave them the essential playbook, and it gave me uninterrupted time to think. 

After all, strategic thinking does not happen in between reviews, meetings, and approvals. Mental peace is really underrated at the managerial level. Honestly, women in leadership can relate to it more cause we have this constant mental checklist running in the background of what needs to be done for the day and the next day too (it’s insane, I know, but true). 

We carry operational responsibilities and the personal ones too. This constant motion is tiring at times, too. 

For someone who has always been a giver, I felt selfish at first. But I did realize it was a necessary step for my personal and professional well-being. 

Blocking hours on my calendar for analysis, planning, and reflection made me better at my role.

One thing I’ve learned is that the number of hours worked does not define the measured outcomes. 

Especially when working in distributed and remote teams, I’ve realized that what matters the most is that you work smartly. Once I shifted the outcome-based evaluation, it helped with ownership and accountability. I’ve never been a fan of micromanagement, so it got out of the window too.

One of the most important realizations I had is that sustainable growth is always operational. We may look for inspiration, new strategies, or productivity hacks, but in reality, we lack the right operational support. 

Leadership becomes lighter and more effective with the right systems and support structures. 

Today, when I work with directors, team leads, and managers, I finally understand their narrative too. Feeling overwhelmed and overworked is natural, but a redesign of operational support goes a long way. 

The real transformation happens when a leader stops being the center of execution and becomes the architect of how execution happens.

That is the day leadership truly begins.

Connect With Summra

www.linkedin.com/in/summra-ahmad-b60269b4

www.medium.com/@summraahmad

www.remotescouts.com