My Goal Is to Make Myself Less Necessary

I had a meeting recently that reminded me exactly why I love what I do.

My client said, “See, I knew I had to talk to you.” Then they told me, “I feel so much more confident going into these conversations now.” And then they hit me with, “You’re SO good at your job.” I’ll take that compliment all day.

But the part that really stuck with me was the confidence piece.

Because they are doing the work. They’re having the hard conversations. They’re thinking shit through. They’re sitting with uncomfortable things. They’re making decisions. Sometimes we work through something together, and sometimes they go away, think it through on their own, have the conversation, and come back and tell me what happened.

And I love watching that.

Because I don’t actually want my clients to need me for every decision.

In fact, my goal is almost the opposite.

I want to make myself less necessary.

There’s a version of advisory work where the advisor becomes the person everyone calls for the answer.

“What should I do?”

“Is this okay?”

“How should I handle this?”

“Can you tell me what to say?”

And sometimes that is exactly what someone needs. There are absolutely moments when you need someone with experience to look at a situation and say, “Here’s what I would do.”

But if that becomes the entire relationship, something is missing.

Because founders and leaders still have to make the decisions. They still have to have the conversations. They still have to lead their people. And they have to live with the outcome.

My job isn’t to take that responsibility away from them.

It’s to help them feel more capable of carrying it.

I think this is one of the most interesting parts of working with founders. Often, they aren’t actually looking for an answer. They’re looking for somewhere to think.

They need to say the situation out loud. They need someone to ask the question they haven’t asked themselves. They need someone to challenge an assumption. They need a gut check.

Or sometimes, they already know exactly what they need to do.

They just don’t feel confident enough to do it.

So we talk.

I might ask, “What are you actually worried about?”

Or, “What would you do if you weren’t worried about how they would react?”

Or, “What keeps bothering you about this?”

Or even, “What do you think you already know?”

And sometimes, somewhere in that conversation, you can actually see the shift.

They already knew.

They just needed enough space to hear themselves.

I think we sometimes misunderstand what confidence looks like.

Confidence doesn’t mean knowing exactly what to do all the time. It doesn’t mean never second-guessing yourself. It doesn’t mean having all the answers. And it certainly doesn’t mean never getting something wrong.

Sometimes confidence looks like saying, “I don’t know yet.”

Sometimes it’s, “I need to think about this.”

Sometimes it’s, “I’m uncomfortable with this decision, but I think it’s the right one.”

Sometimes it’s simply, “I need to have the conversation.”

That’s the kind of confidence I want to help build.

Not confidence in me.

Confidence in themselves.

This is probably one of the biggest differences between how I see my role and how people sometimes think about HR support.

I’m not interested in being the person who has every answer.

I want to understand the business, the people, the personalities, the history and the context well enough to help someone make a good decision.

Sometimes I’ll tell you what I think.

Sometimes I’ll tell you I think you’re missing something.

Sometimes I’ll tell you I wouldn’t do what you’re thinking about doing.

Sometimes I’ll say, “Yep. I think you’re right. Go for it.”

And sometimes I’ll say, “I don’t know. Let’s think about it.”

Because good advice isn’t about having an answer ready for everything.

It’s about helping someone see the situation clearly enough to decide what comes next.

Some of my favourite conversations with clients end with them saying, “Okay. I know what I need to do.”

And then they go do it.

They have the conversation. They make the decision. They deal with the uncomfortable thing that had been sitting on their desk for three weeks.

And then they come back and tell me how it went.

That is a pretty great feeling.

Because I know I didn’t do it for them.

They did.

I just helped them get there.

And over time, I want that to happen more and more.

I want the founder who used to call me before every difficult conversation to eventually think, “I know what I need to do here.”

I want the leader who needed constant reassurance to eventually trust their own judgment.

I want the person who used to avoid the conversation to eventually recognize when something needs to be said and have the confidence to say it.

That’s progress.

There are obviously times when my clients need very specific HR expertise. Employment legislation. Performance issues. Terminations. Compensation. Restructuring. Employee relations. Leadership challenges.

All of that matters.

But the work I find most meaningful often happens somewhere underneath the technical answer.

It happens in the space between:

“I know what I should do.”

and

“I’m actually going to do it.”

That’s where confidence lives.

Sometimes people need information. Sometimes they need experience. Sometimes they need perspective. Sometimes they need someone to challenge them.

And sometimes they just need someone to say:

“Yep. You know what you’re doing. Go.”

That’s the work I love.

Helping people trust themselves a little more.

Helping them say the thing.

Have the conversation.

Make the decision.

Take the next step.

Because ultimately, I don’t want to be the person making your people decisions for you.

I want to be the person who helps you become better at making them yourself.

And honestly?

That feels like a pretty damn good job to have.