What happens when leadership is locked away?

There was a rhythm in our unit. We trained. We evaluated. We moved. We operated like a well-oiled machine; until the day that rhythm was broken.  

Not by war. Not by crisis.  

By a locked file cabinet.  

I needed a personnel file for a routine performance evaluation. Simple enough. So I asked the admin specialist to grab it.  

Her response?  

"It’s locked 🔐. The lead admin has the key, and she’s on vacation."

I paused. Squinted.  

Surely someone else had a spare? The Director of Operations, maybe?  

Nope.  

That’s when I said it, loud enough for everyone to hear:  

"What if she got hit by a bus?"

I wasn’t being cruel. I wasn’t hoping for tragedy. But I needed everyone in that room to confront the reality of the situation:  

Why does an entire process grind to a halt just because one person is gone?

Leadership isn’t just about overseeing people; it’s about building resilient systems. If the system fails when a key player is out, then the system itself is broken.  

And soon, we’d learn that lesson in a way none of us saw coming. But that’s a story for another day.  

​Redundancy is not optional…it’s LEADERSHIP!

When critical processes hinge on one person, the entire organization is vulnerable. Leaders must build systems, not silos.

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