Stop Rewarding Your Best Employees With More Work

Every law firm has them.

The attorney who always gets it done.

The paralegal who can handle anything.

The administrator everyone calls when something goes wrong.

The manager who somehow finds a way to solve the problem, no matter how much is already on their plate.

They're competent.

They're reliable.

They're responsive.

And because leadership knows they can handle it, they become the obvious answer every time something important needs to get done.

"Give it to Sarah."

"Ask Michael. He'll know what to do."

"She can handle it."

At first, this feels like recognition.

The best people get the most important work because they've earned leadership's trust.

But eventually, something strange happens.

Competence gets rewarded with an unlimited workload.

Meanwhile, the people leadership trusts the least often end up carrying less.

That's backwards.

Your Best Employees Shouldn't Have to Carry Your Weakest Ones

I've seen this dynamic in law firms over and over again.

Leadership has an important project.

There are several people who could theoretically handle it.

But everyone knows which person will actually get it done correctly and on time.

So that person gets the project.

Then another.

Then another.

Meanwhile, other employees aren't given the same responsibility because leadership isn't confident they'll execute.

Eventually, the strongest employee is doing their own job plus pieces of everyone else's.

The weaker performers?

Their workload may actually become easier precisely because leadership doesn't trust them.

Think about the incentive that creates.

Perform exceptionally well, and we'll give you more work.

Struggle, and we'll protect you from the difficult assignments.

That's not a performance culture.

Competence Shouldn't Be Punished With an Unlimited Workload

High performers generally don't mind working hard.

In my experience, many of them actually enjoy being challenged.

They want responsibility.

They want opportunities.

They want to contribute.

The problem isn't giving high performers more responsibility.

The problem is failing to distinguish between development and dumping.

Giving someone an important new responsibility because it helps them grow is development.

Giving it to them because they're the only person you trust to get it done is something else entirely.

And if that happens often enough, you've created an organizational problem.

"I Trust Them to Get It Done" Isn't Always a Compliment

This is one of those phrases that sounds positive until you look at what it means operationally.

"I always give it to her because I know she'll get it done."

Okay.

But why don't you trust anyone else?

That's the question leadership needs to ask.

Maybe the rest of the team needs more training.

Maybe responsibilities aren't clear.

Maybe delegation hasn't been handled well.

Maybe someone needs coaching.

Or maybe you have employees who simply aren't performing at the level the firm needs.

Whatever the answer is, continuing to pile work onto your strongest person doesn't solve the underlying issue.

It hides it.

High Performers Can Make Capacity Problems Difficult to See

Great employees have an inconvenient habit.

They figure it out.

Give them too much work and they'll stay late.

They'll answer emails after hours.

They'll reorganize their day.

They'll quietly absorb responsibilities that weren't originally theirs.

They make an unreasonable workload look manageable.

Until it isn't.

That's one reason leadership sometimes doesn't recognize a capacity problem until the employee is completely burned out.

Or worse, until they resign.

Then everyone is shocked.

"We had no idea she was unhappy."

Maybe she wasn't unhappy.

Maybe she was exhausted.

Your Best Employee May Also Be Your Biggest Single Point of Failure

There's another operational risk here.

If every important task flows through the same person, you've created dependency.

What happens when that person goes on vacation?

Gets sick?

Takes parental leave?

Leaves the firm?

Suddenly, leadership realizes how much knowledge and responsibility had accumulated in one place.

The problem isn't that the employee became too valuable.

The problem is that the organization failed to distribute capability.

If every critical project goes to the same person, you don't just have a high performer.

You have a single point of failure.

High Performance Can Hide Weak Performance

This is perhaps the part that frustrates me most.

Sometimes a high performer isn't merely doing too much work.

They're compensating for someone else's poor performance.

They fix mistakes.

They answer questions that should be directed elsewhere.

They finish projects someone else couldn't complete.

They take over client issues.

They quietly clean things up.

And because the problem gets solved, leadership never fully feels the consequences of the weaker employee's performance.

The high performer becomes a buffer.

That's good for the client in the short term.

It's terrible for the organization in the long term.

Because the person who needs to improve never has to.

Stop Letting Your Best People Protect You From Management Problems

This is where leadership has to get uncomfortable.

If one employee consistently has to rescue another, the solution isn't to keep thanking the rescuer.

It's to address the underlying performance problem.

If someone needs training, train them.

If expectations aren't clear, clarify them.

If they need coaching, coach them.

If they're in the wrong role, move them.

And if they're consistently incapable of meeting the expectations of the position, leadership may eventually need to make a harder decision.

What you shouldn't do is quietly transfer their responsibilities to your strongest employee and call the problem solved.

It isn't.

Development and Dumping Are Not the Same Thing

I want to be careful here because high performers should receive more opportunities.

In fact, failing to challenge them can be just as damaging.

The distinction is why they're receiving the additional responsibility.

Development says:

"This project will help you build a skill you'll need for the next level."

Dumping says:

"No one else can handle this, so I'm giving it to you."

Development comes with:

• authority

• resources

• recognition

• growth

• support

Dumping comes with:

• another task

• another deadline

• another problem

Those experiences feel very different to the employee.

Sometimes You Need to Take Something Away

When you give a high performer a significant new responsibility, ask:

What are we taking off their plate?

This is a question I wish more leaders asked.

You can't continually add.

Eventually, something has to come off.

Maybe an administrative responsibility can be delegated.

Maybe a lower-level task should move to someone else.

Maybe technology can eliminate part of the workload.

Maybe the employee needs additional support.

A promotion shouldn't mean:

"Congratulations. You now have your old job plus your new one."

But that happens far more often than it should.

Look at Workload, Not Just Job Titles

Another reason this problem develops is that leadership often thinks about capacity through job descriptions.

On paper, everyone has a role.

In reality, work rarely stays neatly inside those boxes.

The strongest people gradually accumulate responsibilities.

Someone asks them for help once.

Then twice.

Eventually, it becomes their job even though no one formally assigned it to them.

This is why I like looking at what people actually do rather than what their job description says they do.

Those can be two very different things.

The Same People Shouldn't Always Get the Opportunities Either

There's another side to this.

If every important assignment goes to your strongest employee, the rest of the team never develops.

They never get the stretch assignment.

They never learn how to handle the difficult client.

They never manage the project.

They never make the decision.

Then leadership says:

"See? They're not ready."

Of course they're not.

You never let them practice.

Building a strong organization requires intentionally developing capability beyond your current stars.

That sometimes means allowing someone else to handle an assignment even when your strongest employee could do it faster.

Delegation Sometimes Requires Tolerating Imperfection

This is difficult for high performers themselves, too.

Often, the person who has accumulated too much work doesn't want to let anything go.

They know how to do it.

They're fast.

They know it will be done correctly.

Teaching someone else feels slower.

And initially, it probably is.

But if your best people have to personally execute everything to ensure it's done correctly, the organization can never scale.

Someone else may do it differently.

They may take longer initially.

They may need feedback.

That's part of development.

The goal isn't to create replicas of your strongest employee.

It's to build a team capable of producing excellent results without depending on one person.

Recognition Matters, But It Isn't Enough

Sometimes leadership knows a high performer is carrying an enormous load.

So they compensate them well.

Give them a bonus.

Praise them publicly.

Tell them how indispensable they are.

Those things matter.

But compensation and recognition don't create infinite capacity.

You can pay someone extremely well and still burn them out.

At some point, workload itself has to be addressed.

Your Best Employees Usually Have the Most Options

This is the part law firms can't afford to forget.

Your highest performers are often the most employable people in the organization.

Other firms want them.

Recruiters call them.

Clients know they're good.

They have options.

So while leadership is thinking:

"We can't possibly take anything away from her because we need her too much,"

the employee may be thinking:

"I can't keep doing this forever."

That's a dangerous disconnect.

The more dependent your organization becomes on one person, the more damaging it becomes if that person decides to leave.

Don't Build Your Organization Around Heroics

Some law firms have cultures that quietly celebrate heroics.

The person who saves the day.

The attorney who works all weekend.

The manager who fixes the crisis.

The administrator who knows everything.

Occasional heroics happen.

But if your organization consistently requires them to function, that's not a sign of dedication.

It's a sign that something underneath the business needs attention.

Strong organizations shouldn't require extraordinary effort from the same people just to maintain ordinary operations.

The Real Question

The next time you find yourself saying:

"Give it to her. She'll get it done."

Pause.

Then ask:

Why am I giving it to her?

Is this a meaningful opportunity?

Is she genuinely the right person for the work?

Or am I giving it to her because managing everyone else feels harder?

That distinction matters.

Because sometimes the easiest person to delegate to is not the person who should receive the work.

Build More High Performers

The long-term solution isn't to stop relying on great people.

It's to create more of them.

Develop the rest of the team.

Create clear expectations.

Give people opportunities to stretch.

Address poor performance instead of working around it.

Document knowledge.

Delegate intentionally.

And protect your strongest employees from becoming the permanent solution to every organizational problem.

Your best people should absolutely be challenged.

They should be trusted.

They should be given opportunities.

But they shouldn't have to carry the organization on their backs.

Competence shouldn't be punished with an unlimited workload.

And "I know they'll get it done" shouldn't become your firm's entire delegation strategy.

If the same handful of people in your law firm seem to carry every important project, solve every difficult problem, and rescue everyone else, you may have more than a capacity issue.

You may have a delegation, development, or performance-management problem.

I help law firms identify where work is really going, build stronger accountability across the team, develop better delegation structures, and create organizations that don't depend on a few high performers to hold everything together.

Because the goal isn't to get more out of your best people.

It's to build a stronger team around them.