I could carry this… but do I want to?
For many capable women, that question arrives later than you might expect. For years the instinct has simply been to deal with what’s in front of you. If something needs sorting, you sort it. If a decision needs making, you make it. It’s efficient, it keeps things moving, and very often it genuinely helps.
But when you are running a business or holding significant responsibility, the number of things that could reasonably land with you multiplies quickly. Decisions, tensions, opportunities, loose ends that others aren’t quite sure how to resolve.
When every one of those moments automatically becomes something you carry, there is very little space left for anything else.
That is why the arrival of the question matters.
I could carry this… but do I want to?
It introduces a pause where there wasn’t one before. Instead of stepping in automatically, you begin to consider whether something genuinely belongs with you, or whether it has simply landed there because you are capable enough to deal with it.
Sometimes the answer will still be yes. Certain decisions do belong with the person leading the business. Leadership doesn’t remove that.
But the presence of the question changes how you hold responsibility. It separates the things that genuinely require your judgement from the things that have simply arrived because you are reliable, thoughtful, and capable.
Over time that distinction becomes increasingly important. Running a business means carrying responsibility, but it doesn’t require carrying every thread of thinking alone. In fact, the more complex the work becomes, the more valuable it is to have somewhere to think those choices through properly.
That is exactly the role Wing Woman plays in the lives of many of the women I work with. Not someone to take responsibility away from them, but a thinking partner who understands what it means to carry a lot and who can help create the space needed to decide what actually belongs with them.
Because once the question appears – I could carry this… but do I want to? – the way you lead and the way you carry things can begin to change.
