I’ll start with a confession.
For a long time, I’ve been the person on my team that everything ran through. Not because I designed it that way. It just happened. And if I’m honest, part of me didn’t resist it – because I could handle it. I understood the systems, the people, the strategy, the execution. When something fell through the cracks, I caught it. When a project stalled, I stepped in. When a decision needed to be made, I made it.
That kind of capability can feel like purpose. Like you’re doing exactly what you were built for.
But lately I’ve been sitting with a harder question: what if the thing I thought was my strength has quietly become a problem?
Most people develop real strength in one domain, maybe two. That’s normal. It’s how most roles are designed.
But occasionally you come across someone, or maybe you are someone, who operates differently. Not just broadly curious, but genuinely competent across multiple domains. Strategic and operational. Creative and analytical. Able to step into spaces without being asked, connect ideas across disciplines, and carry things forward when others stall.
Existing models, such as T-shaped or π-shaped, don’t quite capture it. Those describe depth plus breadth. This is something else. Multiple areas of genuine strength converging in one person.
That kind of person is rare. Not because people lack interest, but because developing real capability across domains takes time, unusual exposure, and a particular kind of wiring.
When it shows up, work gravitates toward it.
Here’s what I’ve had to reckon with in my own leadership.
I’ve been overstretched. And because I’ve been carrying so much, the business has become over-dependent on me. That sounds like a tribute. It isn’t. It means we’ve built something fragile – something that stalls when I’m not in the room.
There’s something else I’ve had to face, which is harder to admit. In trying to protect standards and outcomes, I’ve held people’s hands when I should have let them reach. I’ve stepped in when I should have stepped back. And in doing so, I’ve slowed their growth and, without meaning to, quietly told them that I don’t fully trust them.
That’s not good leadership. And it’s not good for the people I’m responsible for.
The core problem is this: my domain knowledge is broad, and that makes it genuinely difficult to delegate. Handing over a task isn’t just handing over a task – it requires transferring context, judgment, and years of experience. That’s hard to do quickly. So instead, it’s often easier to do it yourself.
But easier in the short term is expensive in the long term.
A star-shaped person can carry a lot. But they were never meant to carry everything.
I’ve been thinking about this through a lens I keep returning to.
In the Parable of the Talents, those given more are expected to steward more. Faithfulness increases responsibility. But the parable never suggests that one servant should carry the weight of the entire household.
And in 1 Corinthians, the picture is even more deliberate. The body is not made of one part, no matter how capable. It is made of many, each with a distinct function, each genuinely necessary. When one part carries everything, the body doesn’t flourish, it compensates.
The problem is never that gifted people exist.
The problem is when everything begins to depend on them.
So what’s the alternative?
I’ve been asking myself a different question lately: what if the goal was never to become a star-shaped person, but to build a team that embodies distributed strengths?
A star-shaped team emerges when multiple people bring their genuine strengths together in alignment, fostering a shared purpose that makes everyone feel part of something bigger.
Where one person might stretch uncomfortably across five domains, a team can bring five people, each operating with real depth and clarity in their space. The shape still exists. It’s just distributed. And the difference matters enormously.
A star-shaped person is impressive. A star-shaped team is sustainable.
This isn’t an argument against people like us. It’s a reframing of where we fit.
The star-shaped person’s real contribution isn’t holding the system together. It’s helping the system work. That means becoming the connector between domains, the translator between specialists, the person who sees how the pieces fit and helps others operate in their strengths.
But here’s what I’m learning the hard way: that role requires letting go.
It requires trusting people with real responsibility, even before they’ve fully earned your confidence. It requires defining roles clearly enough that work doesn’t default back to you. It requires valuing depth, someone else’s depth, rather than just your own versatility.
And perhaps most confrontingly, it requires accepting that your strength is not proven by how much you can carry. It’s proven by how well you can distribute.
That shift is the hardest thing I’ve had to learn. And I suspect I’m not finished learning it.
The future doesn’t belong to star-shaped people.
It belongs to star-shaped teams.
But this isn’t a diminishing idea – at least I’m trying to hold it that way. Because if you’re someone who has been carrying more than your share, this is actually good news. You don’t have to hold the system together alone. Your strength still matters. It just finds its best expression in something larger than yourself.
The goal was never to be everything.
It was to build something where everyone belongs.
