The Vacation Test

Here's a simple diagnostic for your leadership: take two weeks off. Completely off. No Slack. No "just a quick call." Gone.

What breaks?

Whatever your answer is — that's not a badge of honor. That's a gap.

I coached a director who ran this test by accident. Two weeks, basically unreachable. His team handled ninety percent of what came up. Some of it better than he would have. The ten percent they couldn't? That was the most useful data he'd gotten in months — the real development gaps.

What breaks when you leave isn't a sign of your importance. It's a sign of your team's fragility. And that's a leadership problem.

If you can't take two weeks off without things falling apart — the question isn't "when can I take vacation?" It's "what haven't I built?"