The "Saviour" leadership

What is the "Saviour" Leader?

The "Saviour" leadership self shows up when we feel the need to step in and "rescue" the team or people from challenges, obstacles, or even from the consequences of their own decisions. This leadership self is driven by the belief that, without us, things will go wrong, people will flounder, and the whole ship might sink, or more specifically a belief that this is the function we have in our roles.

It can go from mild saving behaviours like intervening, correcting, to "savior" statements ("Before me ... ; Without me...) or"victim statements" ("this person just doesn't ... so I need to step in), to more toxic appearances like sabotaging or perfectionistic standards.

There are three contexts that seem to bring this out of us more:

1. New manager syndrome—when we steps into a new leadership role and we want to prove our worth (to others and even to ourselves) by swooping in to save the day. This can persist far beyond the early stages of a role, transforming into a pattern where we create a dynamic of dependency. We inadvertently set up situations where the team members become the "victims," needing rescue again and again. This ensures that the we feel indispensable.
2. Manager of Managers - Let's face it, transitioning to M&M is one of the most complicated transitions. We need to shift a lot of things in how we think about our role, our purpose and our work and we need to let go of a lot of behaviours (the letting go is the hardest, particularly in ambiguity, pressure or stress - where we tend to revert to our previous performance which in this case is being a manager of ICs). The Saviour can show up here by skipping levels and managing, we bypass the managers that report to use and we manage their teams. We cover this by saying things like "The managers don't know"; "This is important"; "The managers are immature" "This is sensitive"
3. The third category is a bit sensitive, but I have seen it quite a few times. This is the leaders that have saved themselves and now they want to save the others. It could be that we found a book or a training that solved an important thing for us so we want to preach it, it could be that we had a good therapeutic or coaching experience and we want to give the same to people who we feel need our wisdom or experience (regardless of what they need).

What function does it serve for the us?

Most of the times we feel insecure or we need to prove our worth which is common for a lot of people and can be a useful incentive. Particularly when getting new roles (in new companies or through a promotion) gets us to feel a sense of needing to establish control and demonstrate value so this context pushes this button hard: “If I’m not saving the day, what am I really contributing?” "If I don't step in, why am I even here" "People need me to know to act and to solve".

It’s also a coping mechanism for when we feel overwhelmed or anxious about the team's ability to succeed, either because we want to prove something (our manager skills) or because there is a lot of pressure on us to deliver. By inserting ourselves into every issue, we maintain a sense of control over outcomes, which might temporarily alleviate our anxieties. The problem is that this ends up having a self reinforcing loop. We sweep in, solve the thing. Because we solve the thing the people cannot do the solving, so next time we remember that they did not solve so we have an incentive to step in again.

In some cases, it’s about fulfilling a need for validation of a character trait we identify with. We might need the recognition that comes from solving problems and being seen as indispensable. We might have learned this behavior from a past mentor or previous work environment, where being the hero was equated with leadership success. But it can also be more insidious, coming from the fact that within a lot of companies we attribute success to the "leader's team" by using over and over the name of the leader when talking about contribution or results but also about failures (John's team) instead of using the actual name of the team (Function Team). We push leaders to use their teams for vanity.

Some of the times when we fall into The "Saviour" leader we feel we have good intentions of being good leaders—we want to help, to prove our value and worth, to have an impact, to be seen as capable. It is no wander. It's already 30 years since we are fed this narrative of the "bigger than life leader" that goes around and imparts unheard-off wisdom and changes people and their lives. It's alluring and we fall for it.

But, as a recovering saviour myself with a "fixer" problem, I need to acknowledge that there is an arrogance in this. Underneath all there is a feeling of superiority and a need for power that we crave. That relationship with power (an article in the making on this) shows up in this case as the need to have the power to create purpose, to develop, to inspire, to change, to make better, to fix, to ...

How does it feel on the receiving end?

At first, it might feel comforting to have someone who is always ready to step in and save the day. You don’t have to worry too much because you know your leader will take over when things get tough.

But over time, this becomes suffocating. It sends a subtle message: “You’re not capable of handling this on your own.” It forces you to learn to be helpless, hopeless, insecure, frail, inefficient.

This can also breed resentment. No one likes to feel like a perpetual victim, constantly needing to be saved. There is that saying that "Victims don't create saviours, saviour create victims to save".

It also creates dependency loops. You or the team come to rely on the leader to solve every problem, and the leader continues to play into that role, perpetuating the cycle. This often results in bottlenecks, where decisions and progress stall unless the leader is directly involved, leading to inefficiency and frustration across the board. But it also leads to the very toxic cycle of blaming, resenting, shaming coming from the leader. It gets tiring to keep on saving, and after a while the leader starts to resent that the person needs to be saved.

What can we do instead?

Well ... the bigger lesson here is that "It's not about us", but that is a lesson we keep on learning for years and years. We need to get off of our pedestals and realise that we are in a job, the job is to support, enable and facilitate performance. It is not a special job, a higher mission, it is just a different job with different duties than the people in the team. That's it!

The second, which is the most complicated, is to bite our tongues when we attribute success (including the metaphoric inner dialogue tongue). Correct ourselves and others when the success is attributed to us. This is not some righteous self-sacrificing endeavour, it's not about servant leadership. It's the maturity to realise that results are created within a system and by a system, and we have a role within that system but we don't fully control it. If we can let go of the good feeling of "success is mine" we won't feel the creeping panic when there are challenges or failures.

The third is to remember we are working with adults who are in a contractual relationship with the company. Remember, if you treat people like children you get childish behaviours.

Awareness is the best learning tool, #pleasestopleaderships series brings some insight into the loooooong list of crappy leaderships we might use, explain why we might revert to them, and if possible provide alternatives. (Here is the non-exhaustive list we are working from)