TL;DR: If you're constantly protecting your team from work challenges, you might be creating weakness instead of strength. Strong teams don't need shields – they need strategic clarity and the freedom to manage themselves. The real problem isn't the workload; it's the lack of accountability and poor expectation management that creates a culture of learned helplessness.

The Protection Trap

Last week, I got a call from a VP who was proud of how he "protected" his team. "I never let unreasonable requests reach them," he bragged. "I'm their shield."

Six months later? Half his team had quit. The other half couldn't handle basic client interactions without him. He'd created a daycare, not a department.

Here's what nobody wants to say out loud: If your team constantly needs protection, you don't have a team problem. You have a leadership problem. And maybe – just maybe – you also have the wrong team.

Why "Protection" Creates Weakness

Think about it like this. When you constantly shield your kids from every scraped knee and tough homework assignment, what happens? They grow up unable to handle real challenges.

Same thing happens at work.

Research from the Journal of Applied Psychology shows that teams with high psychological safety actually perform better when they face direct accountability (Edmondson & Lei, 2014). Not protection. Accountability.

The difference? Psychological safety means people feel safe to fail and learn. Protection means they never get the chance to try.

When leaders play bodyguard, three things happen:

1. Learned helplessness kicks in. Your team stops problem-solving because they know you'll swoop in
2. Skills atrophy. They never learn to negotiate, push back, or manage up
3. Resentment builds. Strong performers feel held back while weak ones hide behind your shield

What Teams Really Think When You "Protect" Them

Here's the uncomfortable truth. When employees say they need protection, they're usually asking: "Protection from what exactly?"

From challenging work? From accountability? From having to say no themselves?

A study in the Academy of Management Journal found that teams with "protective" leaders showed 34% lower initiative and 28% less innovation compared to teams with leaders who set clear expectations and let teams manage themselves (DeRue et al., 2012).

Your team doesn't need a bouncer. They need a coach.

The Real Problem: Strategic Confusion

Most "protective" leaders I've worked with share one fatal flaw: they can't negotiate workload effectively. They say yes to everything upstream, then scramble to shield their team from the avalanche.

It's not protection. It's poor planning.

Harvard Business Review research shows that teams perform best when leaders provide what they actually need: strategic clarity, not shields (Groysberg & Slind, 2012). This means:

• Clear priorities (not 47 "urgent" projects)
• Realistic timelines (based on actual capacity)
• Direct access to stakeholders (yes, even the scary ones)
• Permission to push back (with your backing, not your body blocking)

The Democracy Delusion

Here's where it gets worse. Leaders who pride themselves on "protecting" their teams often run them like democracies. Every decision goes to committee. Every deadline gets negotiated based on feelings.

You know what that creates? Chaos.

Research in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes found that teams with democratic leaders spent 41% more time in meetings and delivered 23% less output than teams with clear hierarchical decision-making (Anderson & Brown, 2010).

Your job isn't to make everyone comfortable. It's to make everyone effective.

Building Self-Managing Teams (The Right Way)

So how do you stop being a shield and start being a leader? Here's what actually works:

1. Set Clear Boundaries, Not Walls

• Define what's negotiable and what's not
• Teach your team to assess workload themselves
• Give them scripts for pushing back professionally

2. Create Direct Accountability

• Let team members own client relationships
• Make them present their own work
• Stop being the middleman in every interaction

3. Develop Strategic Muscles

• Share the why behind priorities
• Involve them in resource planning
• Let them feel the natural consequences of overcommitment

4. Hire for Resilience

• Look for people who've navigated ambiguity
• Test for problem-solving in interviews
• Value independence over compliance

The Burnout Connection 🔥

When teams feel they need protection from future challenges, they're already living in fear. That constant anxiety about what's coming next? It keeps them in perpetual fight-or-flight mode.

And guess what chronic fight-or-flight creates? Burnout.

The irony is brutal: by trying to protect your team from stress, you create the exact conditions for long-term burnout. They never develop resilience. They never build confidence. They just wait for the next threat while you play defense.

Your First Move

Stop asking "How can I protect my team?" Start asking "How can I prepare my team?"

This week, pick one thing you've been shielding them from. Maybe it's a difficult stakeholder. Maybe it's a complex priority decision. Whatever it is, stop standing in front of it.

Instead:

1. Explain the challenge clearly
2. Set parameters for success
3. Let them figure it out
4. Debrief what worked and what didn't

Will it be messy? Probably. Will they struggle? Definitely. Will they grow? Absolutely.

Strong teams don't need protection. They need preparation, clarity, and the chance to prove themselves. Everything else is just expensive babysitting.

Ready to build a team that doesn't need a bodyguard? Let's talk about creating real resilience in your organization. Book a conversation at https://book.drdegnan.com.

Until next time, my friend!

— Oliver

Dr. Oliver Degnan

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