And How That Habit Is Undermining Your Leadership, Well-being & Authentic Self
You’ve long been the one who steps in. You spot the gap, you fix the problem, you manage the crisis—even when it’s not yours. In high-stakes roles, with tight timelines, high visibility and few allies, your ability to hold the chaos together becomes a kind of invisible credential: “She can handle it.” But beneath that strength lies a lesser-noticed cost.
When you repeatedly take responsibility for everyone else’s chaos—colleagues’ work, team dysfunction, relational messes, emotional spill-over—you may think you’re being indispensable. In reality you may be carrying burdens that drain your energy, blur your boundaries, erode your sense of self, and contribute to burnout.
In this article we’ll explore why high-achieving women are especially prone to this pattern, the intrapsychic and systemic drivers behind it, how it plays out in high-stakes careers, and what steps you can take to shift it.
How and Why the Pattern Develops
1. Early Internal Messages & Identity Formation
Many high-achieving women report early-life messages such as: “You’re strong,” “You’re the responsible one,” “We count on you,” or “Don’t cause problems.” These messages often form in family systems where you were expected to manage others’ emotional states, fix disruptions, or be the “good” child. Over time this becomes part of your identity: competent, reliable, caretaker.
2. Over-functioning as a Coping Strategy
In professional settings, the term “over-functioning” describes when someone takes on tasks, emotions or responsibilities that properly belong to others. According to one article:
“Over-functioning leaders take inappropriate responsibility for the work and lives of their coworkers… doing work that you know should be delegated to someone else… feeling personally responsible for the feelings and happiness of another person.” (Psychology Today)
Another source notes:
“Overfunctioning is … taking on the responsibilities, emotions, wellbeing, and needs of those around us… often as a way of managing our own anxiety or insecurities.” (MyWellbeing)
In other words: your “helping” becomes a strategy to control anxiety, forestall crisis, maintain status, or protect your worth. But the cost is high.
3. Structural and Gendered Pressures
In high-stakes careers—law, finance, medicine, tech—women often face narrower margins of error and higher visibility. Being “responsible” becomes a survival mode: you take on more so you won’t be judged as less capable. Simultaneously, due to gendered expectations, you may be expected to do the relational or emotional labour (smoothing tensions, handling team stress, “keeping the culture up”). That adds layers of responsibility on top of your formal role.
4. The Illusion of Control & Systemic Chaos
When you’re in a high-stakes environment you may believe that if you don’t take charge, things will fall apart. But many of the “things” you take on—organizational dysfunction, team misalignment, emotional spill-over—are not yours to “fix.” They’re systemic. By stepping in repeatedly you may inadvertently perpetuate the cycle: you hold things together temporarily, but the root causes remain unaddressed. You become the informal glue—and burn out.
How This Plays Out—and What It Costs You
When you’re taking responsibility for others’ chaos, here are some of the typical dynamics and consequences in high-stakes careers:
- Boundary blurring: You pick up others’ tasks, you solve problems outside your scope, you manage emotional fallout after meetings or projects. You may think: “It took too long; someone has to do it.”
- Emotional labour overload: Not only are you delivering results; you’re also managing team morale, smoothing out conflict, containing others’ anxieties. That’s invisible work—and rarely recognized.
- Resentment and fatigue: Eventually you may feel irritated: “Why am I cleaning up yet again? Why am I always the one who…?” The more you do, the more others may expect you to do, and the less they step up.
- Reduced strategic leverage: When you’re always firefighting reactivity, you have less space for reflection, innovation, leadership and authenticity. You may feel trapped in “fixer mode” rather than visionary mode.
- Self-worth tied to usefulness: Your self-esteem may become linked to how much you help, rescue, solve. That’s unstable, especially when you’re invisible behind the results.
- Burnout and identity erosion: Over time you may lose track of other parts of yourself—the person behind the performer. You may wonder: “Is this all I am—the one who keeps other people’s chaos together?”
Why It’s Especially Common in Your Role
Because you’re a high-achieving woman in a high-stakes environment:
- You’ve already shown that you can handle what’s hard; that becomes your implicit contract—“If I can do this, I must.”
- The culture may reward visible competence and under-reward relational or emotional costs.
- You may feel you don’t have permission to delegate, ask for help, or signal vulnerability—lest you appear weak or unworthy.
- You may be one of few women in the room, so stepping in becomes a way to prove reliability, belonging, belongingness-worth.
- You may internalize systemic messages—“I must smooth the path so others don’t feel challenged by my presence”—which leads to taking on extra work that no one asked you to.
What to Do: Interrupt the Pattern & Reclaim Your Energy
- Identify your “rescue scripts”
What story am I telling myself when I jump in? (“If I don’t, no one will; I have to keep this together; I’ll be judged if I let it slip.”) Notice the internal dialogue.
2. Recognise what isn’t yours
Ask: Is this task, emotion or crisis actually mine? Does it fall within my role, or have I taken it on because someone expects it—or I expect myself to?
3. Recalibrate boundaries
Say no, delegate clearly, clarify scope: “I can’t take this on, but I can support you to take it on.” Or: “My role here is X; you’re responsible for Y.”
4. Tolerate the discomfort of letting go
When you stop fixing, something may wobble. That’s normal. Often a better system will emerge when you stop being the only system.
5. Shift belief about worth
Your worth is not solely linked to cleaning up, fixing, rescuing, managing others’ feelings. It’s about integrity, contribution, presence—and you already have proof.
6. Build structural support
Talk to your leader, team or mentor about role clarity, relational labour expectations, team functioning. Advocate for recognition of invisible work.
7. Connect to your values
Ask: What kind of leadership do I want to embody? What qualities matter most (impact, sustainability, authenticity, connection)? Are they aligned with this perpetual rescue mode?
Closing Thoughts
You’ve been the one holding things together for so long that you might forget you’re allowed not to. You might believe that if you step back, things will collapse—or that you’ll collapse. But real strength is not only in the holding—it’s in the choosing. Choosing what you will hold, what you won’t, and what you’ll step into with clarity and support.
If you find yourself constantly managing everyone else’s chaos—and feeling the toll in your body, your relationships, your sense of self—it’s time to pause and reclaim your boundaries, your energy, your leadership.
Ready to stop being the default fixer and start being the intentional leader you were meant to be? Book your first session today, and let’s explore together how to move from perpetual responsibility into sustainable influence and authentic presence. Book your appointment here
Works Cited
Sevincer, A. T., & Inzlicht, M. (2020). Taking Responsibility for Others and Use of Mental Contrasting as a Self‐Regulation Tool. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219898569 (SAGE Journals)
Levy, N. (2019). Taking Responsibility for Responsibility. Frontiers in Psychology. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6655467/ (PMC)
“Are You an Overfunctioning Leader? How to Tell and Fix It.” Psychology Today, 30 Jul 2024. (Psychology Today)
“What is Overfunctioning?” MyWellBeing Therapy. (MyWellbeing)
“Disrupting the Over‐Functioning/Under‐Functioning Dynamic.” Dr Alexandra Solomon (2023). (dralexandrasolomon.com)
“How to Stop Taking on Too Much Responsibility for Others’ Behavior.” Psychology Today, 7 Apr 2022. (Psychology Today)
