Why Smart VPs Become the Single Point of Failure Their Teams Can't Function Without
High-performing VPs don't become the single point of failure because they're incompetent. They get there because the execution habits that earned their promotion actively undermine leadership at scale.
The single point of failure problem isn't a competence problem. VPs in professional services who find themselves reviewing every deliverable, answering every escalation, and sitting in every meeting didn't get there by being bad at their jobs; they got there by being very good at them. The behavioral habits that drove their promotion are the same ones quietly undermining their leadership. Laurie Fenske, Master Certified Coach (MCC) and former financial services executive, calls this the promotion trap: the moment a high performer's greatest strengths become their most consequential liabilities.
How the Promotion Trap Forms
In professional services, the path to VP runs through individual excellence. Financial planners, consultants, lawyers, and analysts get promoted because they produce results that are precise, reliable, often superior to those around them. Their identity is built on knowing the answer, solving the problem, and delivering.
That identity doesn't disappear at the promotion ceremony.
What changes is the job. A VP's output is no longer a deliverable; it's a team. The measure of success shifts from personal execution to collective performance. But the behavioral wiring doesn't shift on its own, and without deliberate intervention, high performers carry their execution habits directly into a leadership role that requires something different.
Fenske's framework identifies this as a leadership identity gap: the distance between the leader, a VP, who has always been (the expert executor) and the leader's role now demands (the strategic architect). The gap isn't visible from the outside at first. It often looks like dedication. It presents high standards. It feels, to the VP, like doing what's necessary to maintain quality.
It is, underneath, the beginning of a dependency.
What the Pattern Looks Like in Practice
The single point of failure rarely announces itself. It builds through patterns that each feels individually justified:
The approval loop. Every significant decision routes back to the VP, not because the team lacks capability, but because the VP hasn't yet built the trust infrastructure to let decisions land without their signature. Team members learn quickly that waiting for sign-off is the path of least resistance. The VP's calendar fills. The team stops deciding.
The escalation habit. When something goes sideways, the VP steps in and solves it. This feels like leadership. It is, in practice, a signal to the team: when things get hard, don't handle it, hand it up. Over time, the team's capacity to navigate complexity atrophies. The VP becomes the organization's default problem-solver, which means the organization can't function when the VP is unavailable.
The meeting presence problem. The VP attends every client meeting, every internal review, every sensitive conversation, because their presence signals competence and builds confidence. What it also signals, unintentionally, is that the team isn't trusted to represent the organization without supervision. Senior team members plateau. Junior team members don't develop. The VP's calendar becomes the team's calendar.
None of these patterns are malicious. All of them are logical extensions of a high-performer's instincts applied in the wrong context.
Why Working Harder Makes It Worse
The instinctive response is effort. If the team isn't executing independently, the VP works more hours to compensate. If decisions are slow, the VP makes themselves more available. If quality is slipping, the VP reviews more closely.
This is the trap within the trap.
Each additional hour of VP effort reinforces the team's dependence. Each review cycle signals that the team's output isn't trusted. Each point of availability trains the team to wait rather than decide. The VP is solving a leadership problem with an execution solution, and execution solutions don't work on leadership problems.
Fenske's observation from 25 years in financial services leadership and executive coaching is direct: effort is not the variable. The VPs who break this pattern don't work harder. They work differently, and the difference is not tactical, it's structural. It begins with a clear-eyed assessment of what the role actually requires.
Execution habit (what made them great) | Leadership liability (what it creates at VP level) |
|---|---|
Reviews every deliverable for quality | Team stops taking ownership of output quality |
Answers every escalation quickly | Team stops developing judgment for complex situations |
Attends every client-facing meeting | Senior team members don't develop client relationship capacity |
Makes decisions fast to keep things moving | Team waits for sign-off instead of building decision-making muscle |
Stays close to the work to maintain standards | VP becomes the single point of failure when volume scales |
The Shift That Actually Breaks the Pattern
The behavioral change required isn't delegation training or time management. Those tools address symptoms. The root issue is identity.
A VP who still sees themselves as the best executor in the room will unconsciously find reasons to stay in execution. They'll feel the pull toward the work. They'll tolerate the dependency because stepping back feels like lowering standards, not like leading.
The shift Fenske works toward with her clients is a redefinition of what "doing a good job" means at VP level. In execution, a good job is a high-quality deliverable. In leadership, a good job is a team that produces high-quality deliverables without the VP in the room. These are not the same job description. The VP who can hold the second definition and lead from it is no longer the default decision point, and no longer the constraint on their team's growth.
Three concrete shifts mark the transition:
From approver to standard-setter. Rather than reviewing every piece of work, the VP invests time in establishing what "good" looks like through frameworks, examples, and direct coaching conversations with team members. The VP's judgment gets embedded in the team's process rather than inserted at the end.
From problem-solver to question-asker. When escalations arrive, instead of solving them, the VP asks: "What have you tried? What would you do if I weren't available?" Over time, the team builds the muscle to navigate complexity independently. The VP becomes a resource, not a rescue.
From attendee to sponsor. Rather than attending every high-stakes meeting, the VP prepares team members to attend, debriefs afterward, and builds the team's external credibility. Their presence becomes the exception that signals stakes, not the default that signals distrust.
Fenske uses behavioral assessments, including the McQuaig assessment for both the VP and their team, to map the specific dynamics at play: where the team is holding back, where the VP's instincts are overriding delegation, and where the highest-leverage shifts are. Her work with VP clients in professional services is built around exactly this progression, from diagnosis to deliberate identity shift to sustainable new operating model.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take for a VP to stop being the single point of failure?
The timeline depends on the depth of the pattern and how long it's been in place. Clients notice the change happens over a number of significant shifts. First concrete shift, reclaiming strategic headspace and delegating one or two major workstreams from there, we revisit other entrenched habits to ultimately work towards an environment of full team autonomy, where the VP is no longer the default decision point.
Is this pattern more common in certain industries?
It's particularly dense in professional services, financial services, law, accounting, and consulting because these industries promote technical excellence and client delivery. The identity of "expert practitioner" is reinforced for years before the VP promotion, making the identity gap at the leadership level more pronounced than in industries where management tracks are more distinct.
Can a VP break this pattern without external coaching?
Some do, particularly those with strong peer networks or mentors who have navigated the same transition. The challenge is that the dependency pattern is hard to see from inside it. VPs often interpret the symptoms, overwhelm, team dependence, and reactive days as workload problems rather than identity problems, which leads to effort-based solutions that reinforce the pattern. An external perspective accelerates the diagnosis.
What's the difference between high standards and being the default decision point?
High standards are a leadership asset when they're embedded in the team's process. They become a constraint when they require the VP's personal involvement to be maintained. The test: if the VP is unavailable for a week, does quality hold? If the honest answer is no, the standards are attached to the VP's presence rather than to the team's capability.
What does the VP's team experience while this pattern is in place?
Capable team members experience the dependency as a ceiling. Their judgment isn't trusted, their development stalls, and their autonomy is limited. Disengagement follows. The team members most likely to leave are often the highest-potential ones because they have options and they know when they're not growing.
The VP who recognizes their own reflection in this pattern already has the most important thing: self-awareness. The question isn't whether change is possible. It's whether they're willing to redefine what doing a good job actually means at their level. Laurie Fenske works with VPs in professional services who are ready to make that shift. To find out more please visit Dream Coach Match profile.