I Want to Be Invisible

When I asked one of my clients what his number one goal was for the year ahead, his answer surprised me. Not a bigger budget. Not a promotion. Not a flashy new initiative.

"I want to be invisible," he said.

He didn't mean he wanted to disappear.

He continued, "If I do my job right, I shouldn't be needed, at least not for the day-to-day. My team should have the skills, the confidence, and the clarity to say, "This is the way we're going to move forward," without looking to me for permission or direction."

It's a deceptively simple goal. And one of the most powerful a leader can have.

This leader has just navigated one of the most intense periods of his career: a major workplace restructure, significant staff turnover, months of recruitment, a serious illness that took him out for six weeks, and the challenge of integrating an almost entirely new team. At one point, he was running three-week intensive programs while simultaneously conducting weeks of interviews, managing performance issues, and negotiating complex HR agreements. He was stretched across every conceivable direction.

And that's exactly why invisibility became his aspiration.

When leaders are constantly pulled into operational detail, answering questions their team could handle, compensating for underperformance, firefighting problems that shouldn't reach their desk, they can't do the work that they are paid to do. They can't think strategically. They can't build the relationships and partnerships that move an organisation forward. And their health suffers. Their energy drains. Their capacity to lead with empathy and vision erodes.

Invisibility, in this context, is not absence. It's the ultimate sign of presence. The kind of presence that has built something sustainable enough to function without constant intervention.

Think about what has to be true for a leader to become invisible. Communication must be crystal clear, so people know what's expected without having to ask. Trust must run deep enough that staff feel safe making decisions and owning mistakes. Training must be thorough enough that capability exists at every level. Empathy must be embedded in the culture, so people feel seen and supported, not by one heroic individual, but by the system itself.

This leader is already laying the groundwork. He's meeting individually with each new team member to outline expectations for the next two months. He's scheduled an all-staff meeting to present the new structure. He's planned an off-site retreat where the broader leadership will align on shared direction. He's bringing on team leaders whose job it will be to drive accountability, so that he doesn't have to. He's even using AI tools to streamline his administrative load, freeing up cognitive space for the work that matters most.

And perhaps most telling, he's already seen early signs that it's working. New staff members are setting standards without being asked, organising shared spaces, pushing for accountability among longer-tenured colleagues, bringing an energy that lifts the whole team. That kind of organic momentum doesn't happen by accident. It happens because a leader has been intentional about the culture they're creating.

Invisibility is one of the best demonstrations of great leadership. The ship can sail with ease and grace when the captain is not on deck.

Another executive client of mine proved this last year when she went on leave for five weeks and was not contactable. Everything ran smoothly depsite her being responsible for 40,000 people. That wasn't luck. It was the result of years of building capability, trust, and systems that didn't depend on her being in the room.

The concept of the invisible leader mirrors something I know well from the mediation world. The best mediators are the ones the parties barely notice. They create the conditions for resolution without drawing attention to themselves. The conversation flows. Agreement emerges. And when it's over, the people in the room feel like they did it themselves.

So if you're a leader reading this, ask yourself: could you step away for a month and trust that things would keep moving? If the answer is no, that's not a failing. It's a direction. Start building toward your own invisibility. Clarify expectations. Develop your people. Delegate not just tasks but decision-making authority. Show empathy so consistently that it becomes the culture, not just your personal trait.

Because the most visible sign of exceptional leadership is a leader who doesn't need to be seen at all.

About the Author

Caryn Cridland is a business psychologist, lawyer, and mediator who transforms Fortune 500 executives' career-defining crises into conscious leadership breakthroughs through her proprietary Executive Evolution System.™ With two decades specializing in high-stakes workplace conflicts and leadership development, four degrees in psychology and law, she helps "brilliant exceeders" evolve from intellectual dominance to conscious leadership.

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