When leaders stop holding the line.

This school year, from a work standpoint, truly could not come to a close fast enough.

It’s been a year.

The kind of year that stretches you in ways you didn’t ask for. The kind where you wake up tired before the day even starts because your brain already knows what’s waiting for you.

But I found myself in a conversation yesterday with an employee, and for the first time in a long time, I realized just how much of this year I allowed to happen.

Not intentionally.
Not maliciously.
But still… allowed.

At some point this year, I stopped being able to “hold the line.”

Meaning: I stopped holding the standard.

Or maybe more accurately, I stopped consistently holding adults accountable to the standards and responsibilities attached to their jobs.

And I genuinely don’t know if that’s the hardest part of leadership or the thing that destroys leadership the fastest.

Because here’s the reality no one talks about enough:

The moment holding someone accountable becomes emotionally exhausting, leadership starts negotiating with dysfunction.

Not because the leader doesn’t care.
Not because they lack vision.
But because they are weighing the emotional fallout against the operational need.

And in a short-staffed workforce, that equation gets dangerous fast.

You start asking yourself:
Is it easier to address this issue…
or just do the job yourself?

Is it easier to train, hire, onboard, and potentially go through months of instability…
or just quietly carry the weight?

So, you carry it.

And then suddenly leadership isn’t leading anymore.

Leadership is covering.
Fixing.
Absorbing.
Compensating.

And somewhere along the way, the expectation quietly becomes:
“Well, leadership will handle it.”

Regardless of what leadership’s actual role is.

What I also realized is this: when accountability disappears, people stop hearing “please do your job” and start hearing personal criticism.

The leader protecting the greater whole becomes “hard to work with.”

The scapegoat.

The problem.

And I can say now, honestly, I played a role in creating that dynamic because I waited too long to pull the Band-Aid off in places where I should have acted sooner.

Not because I didn’t know.

Because I did know.

But leadership has this strange way of making you feel responsible not only for outcomes, but for everyone’s emotions surrounding the outcomes too.

That’s exhausting.

And maybe that’s why, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t know if leadership is my future anymore.

At least not in the traditional sense.

I think I want to sit with the teenagers.

The misunderstood ones.
The ones figuring themselves out.
The ones who still respond to honesty, structure, and accountability before adulthood teaches them to personalize every correction.

I seem to fit there better.

Maybe because teenagers are still becoming.

Adults often arrive convinced they already have.

And maybe that’s the lesson I’m taking from this year:

Holding the line isn’t cruelty.

Standards are not attacks.

Accountability is not oppression.

In healthy environments, accountability protects everyone.

The children.
The mission.
The team.
The leader.
Even the person being corrected.

Because once standards disappear, resentment fills the gap every single time.

This year taught me a lot.

Mostly that leadership without boundaries eventually becomes self-abandonment.

And I’m not willing to do that anymore.