Covering for Your Boss: When to Step Up and When to Step Back with Myra Hall
No More Leadership BS
Covering for Your Boss: When to Step Up and When to Step Back with Myra Hall
October 7, 2026
Your boss keeps dropping the ball and you keep catching it. She gets the credit and you get the extra work. T his week the panel gets into why managers stop managing, why covering for them teaches the whole team the wrong lesson and why one owner called a $60,000 mistake the best money he ever spent. Leave with three coaching questions that might change who you're carrying.
You're Carrying the Weight. They're Carrying the Title.
Every workplace has two people: the one who's supposed to be responsible and the one who actually is. If you're the second one, you know how it goes. Your boss shows up two hours late with a deadline bearing down and asks for help "just this once." You get it done in time. She gets the credit. Next week it happens again.

This week the panel takes on the quiet habit of covering for someone who won't own their job. The real question is when to cover, when to call it out and when to let it fail.

The Night-Before Phone Call
One panelist spent years as a full-time professional speaker. His business partner would call the night before an event (sometimes the same day) and ask him to cover a gig on the other side of the country. He paid for the last-minute flights himself and waited six to eight weeks to get the money back. It put a strain on his marriage and his family. He did it anyway, because the clients deserved better. Eventually he started asking a harder question: should this guy be running the company at all?

Why Managers Stop Managing
Boredom tops the list. Stay in the same seat long enough and you get comfortable, and comfortable leaders start handing everything off. One panelist admits he fought that pull himself before he saw what it did to the work. Conflict avoidance is close behind. Some people end up in leadership roles even though they can't stand the people side of the job. Plenty of others were simply never trained.

You Tolerate What You Allow
Stepping up once is generous. Stepping up every week sets a pattern. The person you're covering never learns, and the rest of the team is watching and taking notes on what gets rewarded.

The smartest fix in the episode came from a pediatric occupational therapist. Teachers kept asking her to teach handwriting. That isn't her job, and the law doesn't let her provide it outside a formal referral process. So she built a board of QR codes that link to step-by-step teaching resources. The teachers get real help, she keeps her boundary and the responsibility stays with the people who own it.

Maybe They Don't Know
Most people aren't out to sabotage anyone. They're doing the best they can with what they know, and nobody can see their own blind spots. Good leaders and coaches help people come to their own understanding instead of dictating it (although nobody lets a toddler find out about a hot stove on their own). Sometimes the problem sits higher up. If nobody ever spelled out who owns what, everyone points at someone else when the deadline hits.

Pain teaches you something. If you keep putting your hand back over the flame, though, you've stopped being the victim. Taking responsibility for your choices, including where you draw the line, is where the freedom comes from.

The $60,000 Lesson
A young construction estimator botched a bid that cost his company $60,000. He went into the owner's office and offered to resign. The owner asked one question: would it happen again? No. "Best sixty thousand dollars I ever spent." The estimator stayed thirty years.

Compare that with a nurse whose error skewed a lab result. It wasn't life-threatening, but she flatly denied having made it. The team investigated and found she'd lied. The mistake was survivable. The lie got her fired.

Bottom Line
Cover it when a customer or serious revenue is on the line. Let the internal report wait. Either way, what you do after the rescue matters more than the rescue. Cleaning up someone else's mess doesn't make you the hero, and sometimes the most responsible thing you can do is hand it back.

BONUS
Three questions to sit with this week. Who are you covering for right now, and do they even know? If you stopped tomorrow, what would actually break, and what would just feel uncomfortable? Are you being responsible or playing the martyr? If you don't like your answers, email us at askus@leadershipbs.co.

Have questions,  suggestions or just a great story to tell about some Leadership BS you have experienced? Let us know by emailing us 

Today's Featured Coach - 

  • Myra Hall - Individual and Team Coaching, Midlife Mentoring- Helping you get excited about life again as you overcome the things that keep you from living and loving a life that counts. - Owner/Founder Waypoint Coaching Group Reach Myra at Myra@WaypointCoachingGrp.com or 765-623-9711

The rest of the gang: