When is help not helpful as a leader?

We raised chickens on the farm growing up. It’s painful to watch a chick hatch when you’re a born caregiver like me. One day I “helped” a chick by breaking the egg for it. To my horror, it died.

On that fateful day I learned that sometimes help isn’t always helpful. Sometimes people need to go through the struggle to gain the strength to succeed. I see this when we do too much for kids. We call it snowplow parents when we prepare the road for the child rather than prepare the child for the road. Snowplow parenting and snowplow leadership can lead to entitlement, anxiety from a lack of confidence to deal with the reality of life, and burned out leaders.

Snowplow leadership is always fueled by caring, but expressed through overprotective.

What might you be doing as leaders to help your teams too much and thereby have them miss out on growth opportunities?