By Steve Muscat Azzopardi
Trust, not control, is the key to stronger teams. Discover how leaders can loosen their grip, empower people, and unlock hidden potential.
Most of the control of a motorbike is handled through the rider’s wrists. These control the acceleration, braking, clutch and steering. That’s a lot to manage, and novice riders usually respond by gripping the handlebars too hard. We call this the death grip.
The result is a jerky ride, rapid fatigue, and a delayed reaction time. Worst of all, locked arms transmit every bump in the road directly into the handlebars, destabilising the whole machine. By contrast, loose wrists allow the front of the bike to move fluidly beneath you, absorbing the imperfections of the road.
In leadership, this translates to a simple notion: stop strangling your team.
If you attempt to lead by controlling your team too tightly, micromanaging, overreacting to small bumps, or demanding constant updates, you become the rigid point in the system. You transmit your own anxiety directly to your team. You create a jerky ride where every minor issue becomes a major crisis because you are too tense to absorb it.
By contrast, leading with a loose wrist means finding the balance between direction and freedom. It allows the suspension of your team’s processes and skills to handle the bumps without you losing your balance.
The Illusion of Control
Why do we grip too tight? Usually, it’s just nerves. We think that holding on harder gives us more control, like we would grab a handrail on a slippery staircase. In reality, that tight grip removes our ability to feel the ride.
In business, it is exactly the same. We micromanage because we are afraid of failure. We copy ourselves on every email, demand to sign off on minor decisions, and hover over desks because we believe this tight supervision prevents errors.
When there’s an issue, every instinct screams at you to take over. It feels faster. And in the short term, it probably is. It is always quicker to tighten the bolt yourself than to teach someone else which wrench to use. But that is management, not leadership.
Leadership takes time. It takes time to build trust. It takes time to let a team member find their own balance. If you are always rushing for the quick fix, you are acting like a mechanic while your stressed team needs a calm rider. You have to be willing to trade short-term speed for long-term stability.
Trust your Team
As with most lessons in my leadership journey, I learned about the immense power of trust when I least expected it.
At the time, I managed three teams. Each had a strict hierarchy: a supervisor, a senior officer, and the general staff. As a rule, the supervisor and senior officer were never meant to be absent at the same time, but due to illness, I found myself with a gap in the chain of command.
For one morning, I tried to cover the role of running that team myself, but I had too many commitments to do so effectively. I was gripping the bars too tight, trying to steer two bikes at once. I was stressed, the team was tense, and the ride was getting jerky.
I realised I had to let go. I asked the most experienced of the remaining team members to step up and handle what he could, while only passing the bigger headaches to me.
I was not sure how well he would do this, although I was confident that he was capable of doing it. He usually fulfilled his role but showed no interest in additional challenges, accepted rules but never spoke up; a solid worker but not one to set the world on fire. Nonetheless, I asked him to do this, and when he doubtfully asked if I was sure, I assured him that I trusted him fully.
He blew past my expectations by doing a fantastic job, not only tackling all the day’s priorities, but he also suggested a process change. I commended him for his efforts and attitude, then asked him why he had never shown such initiative prior to this. His words stung: “I didn’t know if you trusted me.”
My tight grip on the hierarchy had been suffocating his potential. By finally relaxing my wrists, I didn’t just relieve my own fatigue; I allowed the ‘suspension,’ the team’s hidden capability, to finally work.
Arrogance tightens our grip because it believes ‘only I can do this right.’ Humility loosens our grip because it acknowledges that ‘others have skills and potential I need to unlock.’ Engagement is impossible without the humility to listen and pay attention.
The single most powerful act you can take as a leader to supercharge your team is to trust them, and to let them know that you do. If you explain very clearly what you expect, what the result should look like, and give them free rein to do it, you will be amazed at how well people can perform. Some are more comfortable with instructions, and that’s fine, support them in that way, but I really believe that everyone has areas of work where their free initiative will blow their leaders’ socks off.
Delegating Decision-Making
When delegating authority, both parties need to realise that there is no golden rule to identify the ideal level of decision-making authority. It’s a constantly moving line based on the importance of the decision (from routine to critical), and it should also move towards greater delegation of power as the person develops into the role.
A loose wrist here means urging them to act on their own initiative. I say, “As long as you stay between these guardrails (budget, timeline, values), you don’t need to ask me. Just ride.”
R·I·D·E Checkpoint: Setting the Guardrails
You cannot just say “I trust you” and walk away; that is negligence. You must define the riding area. Before delegating a project, hold a conversation covering these three parameters:
- The Hard Lines (Non-Negotiables): Define the absolute limits where they must stop and ask for help.
- Example: “You have full autonomy on this project, provided we stay within the €10k budget and launch by the 15th. If you foresee a breach of either, I need to know immediately.”
- The Soft Lines (Values & Quality): Define how you want them to ride.
- Example: “I don’t mind how you get the data, but our report must be 100% accurate, and the tone must be respectful of the client. Speed matters, but not at the cost of integrity or our reputation.”
- The Handoff (The Verbal Contract): End the conversation by explicitly transferring the weight. As the earlier story proved, implied trust is often missed.
- Example: “I am stepping back now because I trust you to handle this. I am here if you need me, but I am not going to grab the handlebars while you are riding. It’s yours.”
From Solo Rider to Road Captain
Keeping your wrists loose is ultimately an act of letting go of your own ego. It requires the humility to accept that you do not need to control every vibration to keep the machine upright.
When you are tight, you are unpredictable. You are so focused on fighting your own machine that you become a liability to everyone around you. You cannot signal your intentions, you cannot react to the riders beside you, and you certainly cannot lead a pack.
But when you master the loose wrist, when you trust your machine and your team to handle the road, your head comes up. Your vision expands beyond the immediate hazards.
You are no longer just a rider trying to stay upright; you are a road captain, ready to coordinate with others, anticipate collective risks, and lead a group towards a shared destination.
Steve Muscat Azzopardi
