Someone Else Can Schedule The Meeting

By Hope Mueller

Growing up on a commune, you learn from an early age that your primary function is to serve the community. Filling gaps isn’t optional — it’s expected.

I become skilled at quickly diagnosing what is broken and stepping in to fix it. When family or community disputes arose, I was the mediator. There wasn’t much money, and I ventured out for my first job at age 12. Whether I was washing dishes or waiting tables, I enjoyed providing service to others and making customers happy.

When I entered the corporate world, this approach initially was an asset. Early on, I received praise for pitching in wherever needed. I took on extra tasks, cleaned up messes, and made sure nothing and no one fell through the cracks.

But what can make you indispensable as a younger employee can sideline you as your career progresses. Although the feedback from bosses never changed — everyone loves someone who rolls up their sleeves and gets it done — I began to realize my colleagues did not necessarily see me as their peer. They often expected administrative or operational tasks to fall to me, and worse yet, I volunteered or automatically jumped in to do these activities.

Overcoming The Reflex To Serve

The reflex to serve blurred boundaries around my role and prevented my colleagues from seeing my strategic value and contributions. Operational and administrative tasks take more time than people realize, and focusing on coordinating activities reduced the time I spent on planning, being strategic, or even being prepared for an event or important meeting. I made sure everyone else was prepared and had what they needed but left myself behind.

I know I’m not alone. There’s an unspoken risk for people, especially women, who show up as service-oriented in the workplace. The willingness to take on invisible work leads to mountains of tasks that are undervalued and expectations that are endless. You only get noticed when things do not go well.

Changing this ingrained behavior hasn’t been easy for me. Even now, I must stop myself from swooping in when there’s chaos, indecision, or a train wreck rumbling down the tracks.

Holding The ‘Helper’ In Check

I am building a system to aid me in holding the “helper” part of my personality in check. Here’s what I try to do:

• For years, I closed almost every meeting with “What do you need from me? Now, I make myself simply say goodbye and move on.
• I don’t volunteer for extra work or try to solve other team’s problems, and only step in if there is a significant risk to the business or I am asked for assistance.
• When the urge to jump in hits, I write a quick note to myself rather than offer to act. Writing it down is enough to get the thought out of my head and prevents me from adding more to my plate.

These may sound like small things, but for someone wired to leap in, they represent a big shift. It sometimes feels selfish to not serve others and to protect my bandwidth. But it is  the only way to be seen as an equal and to successfully focus on my work.

Behaviors become deeply rooted in us from a young age, and we’re not always cognizant in the moment of how much we’re driven by them. I still remember in third grade, my friend and I put together a show for our parents. I played the parts of eight different characters, while my friend played only one: the main character. I did the most work and she got all the glory. I didn’t even notice it, but her mom called it out.

Service Orientation With Boundaries

Servant leadership is all the rage these days. But as a leader, this service-oriented mindset can be destructive, scattering your attention across an unfocused basket of responsibilities. You easily end up with a portfolio of random tasks — effectively becoming the organizational catch-all. Instead of owning a strategic mandate, you find yourself juggling everything from office coordination to visitor badges. And it impossible to carve out time for the high-impact work that moves the business forward.

Some degree of service orientation is, of course, extremely valuable for leaders, but without boundaries, it becomes an obstacle to continued career growth. Leadership means knowing when to jump in and when to let someone else worry about the details. I’m learning to lead — not by filling every gap, but by stepping back and being maniacally intentional with my time and effort.

Someone else can book the meeting.

About The Author:

Hope Mueller is the SVP of Corporate Development and Strategy at Currax Pharmaceuticals. Trained as a microbiologist, Hope also has worked at Eli Lilly, Baxter, Catalent, Crealta, and Horizon. Over the course of her career, she has led or stood up programs in Business Development, Continuous Improvement, Communications, Corporate Governance, Operations and Quality, and Regulatory.