Stop Shoulding All Over Your Team

How Your Expectations Are Crushing Performance

There's a phrase I use with clients that always gets a reaction.

"Stop shoulding on yourself."

And then I add: "Because when you're shoulding on yourself, you're probably shoulding on your team too."

That's what we're doing, isn't it? Every time we say "I should be able to handle this without help" we're setting an impossible standard. And when we can't meet that standard ourselves, we expect our teams to meet it anyway.

The weight your team is carrying

A senior leader sat across from me recently and said: "I've achieved everything I set out to do this year. The team has delivered. But I just feel tired. I should feel proud. I should be celebrating. But nothing we do is ever actually enough."

There it was. That word. Should.

She wasn't just carrying the weight of her actual responsibilities. She was carrying the weight of all the expectations about how she should feel, where she should be, what kind of leader she should be.

Leaders who should all over themselves inevitably should all over their teams. "They should be able to figure this out." "They should know what I need without me having to explain." "They should be more proactive." "They shouldn't need this much support."

The gap that breaks teams

Your brain compares expectations to reality. The gap between those two creates stress. The larger the gap, the more stress you feel.

In teams, YOUR gap becomes THEIR burden. When your expectations are unrealistic, your team feels like they're constantly failing. Even when they're not.

Two leaders, same team performance, same challenges. One is stressed to breaking point. The other is managing fine. The difference? Their expectations. Leader one thinks they should handle everything without breaking a sweat. That asking for help means they're failing. That their team should just "get on with it." Leader two knows their capacity has limits. Knows that some things are genuinely difficult. That needing support is normal. That teams need clear direction, not mind-reading skills.

Same circumstances. Different expectations. Completely different team experiences.

Your expectations are contagious

When you expect yourself to be superhuman, you unconsciously expect the same from your team.

When you think asking for help is weakness, your team learns to hide their struggles.

When you never admit mistakes, neither will they.

When you work 60-hour weeks and pretend it's fine, they feel guilty for having boundaries.

Your team is watching how you handle pressure, and they're learning what's "acceptable." If you're shoulding all over yourself, they're learning they should too.

What realistic actually means for teams

Realistic doesn't mean settling. It doesn't mean lowering standards or giving up on excellence. It means being honest about what's achievable given your team's actual capacity, not their ideal capacity.

A realistic expectation might be: "This project is genuinely complex and will require focused effort and clear priorities." Not: "They should be able to do this in their sleep while handling everything else."

Realistic means acknowledging that your team is human. They have limits. They need support. They make mistakes. They need clarity, not telepathy. Fighting reality exhausts teams. And reality always wins.

The questions worth asking

If your team is struggling to meet expectations ask yourself:

• Where did this expectation actually come from? Is it realistic given current circumstances?

• Am I expecting my team to operate at a level I can't even maintain myself?

• What would "good enough" look like if I were being honest about our capacity?

• Am I using these expectations to drive performance or to create impossible standards?

• What would change if I focused on what's actually achievable instead of what should be possible?

These aren't easy questions. They require brutal honesty about whether your expectations are realistic or just perfectionism disguised as leadership.

The leadership trap

This time of year is particularly brutal for this. You've set ambitious targets. Your team is have been back from holiday for a while and they were supposed to "hit the ground running." But your team is:

• Still tried from December

• Financially stressed from Christmas

• Operating in the darkest, coldest months

And you're expecting peak performance, now.

The gap between what you think they should be doing and what they're actually capable of right now is enormous. That gap is creating stress for everyone.

This language shift can changes teams

Try this for a week. Every time you catch yourself saying "They should," replace it with "They could."

• They should be further ahead → They could be further ahead, and they're not, what's missing?

• They should be able to handle this → They could handle this with support, what support do they need?

• They should have figured this out → They could ask for help, have I made that safe?

"Should" is judgment. It creates defensiveness and shame."Could" is possibility. It opens up conversation about what's actually needed. One creates stuck teams. One creates problem-solving teams.

Your choice

You can lead with impossible expectations that create stress and undermine performance. Or you can lead with honest expectations that acknowledge reality and build sustainable high performance. One creates teams that are constantly failing to meet the bar. One creates teams that can actually reach it.

So stop shoulding all over yourself. And stop shoulding all over your team.

Start being honest about what's actually achievable given your circumstances, your team's capacity, and your resources. There's a difference. That difference might be what turns your struggling team into a high-performing one.

A diagnostic approach

If you're ready to understand what expectations are creating unnecessary stress and impacting your team's performance, the S.T.R.E.S.S.™ Framework can help. It's not about lowering standards. It's about diagnosing what's realistic, what's causing the gap, and what needs to change.

Stress deserves diagnosis. Not just for you, but for your team too.

Do you fancy a chat about how this might work for your team? Get in touch or book a call.