6 Signs You Are Leading from the Trench

When your role requires motorcycle leadership, but you get pulled back into the trench

Leadership elevation is part of the shift from leading in the trench of details to leading from a bigger picture. Strategic thinking is part of stepping out of day-to-day execution. The challenge in this growth is that a leader can begin thinking more strategically and still find themselves pulled back into the trench in how they lead, respond, communicate, and carry the work. One of the greatest challenges in leadership growth is figuring out how to get out of the trench and lead from the next level.

The Elevation Model helps define work at different levels. The trench is where execution happens. The motorcycle is a higher level of leadership that connects, develops, communicates, and moves the work forward. Advancement in strategic thinking helps to make the pivot from the trench to the motorcycle. Since we have strategic thinking on every level, the shift of what to do to work outside the trench can be difficult to recognize. Often, leaders think they are leading from a higher level than they are. The leadership often looks responsible, engaged, and helpful; however, if leading from the trench, it is too low and misses things.  A leader in the trench may be supervising, carrying, staying involved, or overseeing, thus staying too close to execution and missing the strategic motorcycle leadership that is really required from them and adds value to their role.

These six signs help identify the difference between trench and motorcycle leadership: 

1. Overseeing the Work Instead of Connecting It

One of the easiest places for a leader to get stuck is in a middle space that feels like leadership because they are no longer doing all the work themselves. They are checking in, reviewing progress, watching what is happening, and staying close enough to make sure nothing gets missed. It is responsible and engaged. At this point, however, it can feel confusing to know what their role in the project is, or feel scattered, filling in all the cracks and things that might get dropped. While this matters, it is often more like sitting in the trench than riding at motorcycle level (or at times sitting on the ladder of the trench). This can cause frustration with the levels above. Personally, it can feel challenging and overwhelming to feel responsible for so much, doing some tangible work, and trying to figure out what is a priority.

The difference is that the motorcycle is not there simply to watch the work. It has a new job and is there to connect the work. It connects what is happening below to what is needed above, outside, and next. It sees where the work is headed, what it affects, what support is needed, and where things may get stuck. If a leader has stepped back from doing, but has not stepped up into connecting, they can look involved while still leading too low.

• Trench: Staying near what is visible, checking progress, and overseeing what is already in motion
• Motorcycle: Connecting the work to direction, timing, people, pressure points, and what is coming next
• Question: Am I more focused on overseeing the work, or am I connecting it to elevate results?

2. Gatekeeping the Work Instead of Moving It Forward

This is similar but different from point one; it is about movement. A leader is not just a checkpoint to approve, review, weigh in, hold decisions, or position themselves as the authority presence over the work. This is where the team might not feel trusted, leaders get accused of micromanagement, etc. This is a misunderstanding of what is happening in the task/motorcycle connection stage. This is not just for the leader to be involved, informed, and central.  If a leader stays too close to the work, it slows movement; the purpose is more “check and verify”. It is about alignment and fit with where the work goes outside the trench, and with the task in the first place. It is a type of quality assurance and checks and balances. When the trench and leader stay in connection, work can be accelerated, and results are exponentially better.  It is not about approving; it is about fit and acceleration.

Motorcycle leadership is not about becoming the gate. It is about helping the work move. It holds the larger view, sees where things are getting stuck, keeps the flow moving across people and priorities, and helps the whole system function better. A gatekeeper holds the work. A motorcycle leader helps it travel.

• Trench: Becoming the approver, checkpoint, or holder of the work
• Motorcycle: Creating flow, removing friction, and helping the work move across the system
• Question: How am I acting like the gate, versus how am I helping the work move forward?

3. Monitoring Effort Instead of Owning the Outcome

Many strong leaders in the transition from trench to motorcycle work hard, show up, contribute, and follow through on their part. The problem is that ownership can stop at effort. The list was sent. The task was delegated. The handoff was made. A conversation happened. Then the leader assumes the loop is closed because they did what they were supposed to do.

That is often good trench-level leadership, but at the motorcycle level, ownership means ensuring the outcome, not just contributing to the process. It means checking whether something was received, understood, resourced, and completed. It means following up until there is enough clarity to know it landed. The issue is not laziness or lack of care. It is underestimating what ownership requires at a higher level.

• Trench: Measuring ownership by effort, contribution, or handoff
• Motorcycle: Staying with the work long enough to ensure the outcome is actually secured
• Question: Where do I contribute and stop versus ensure the project is completed per requirements?

4. Internal Thinking Instead of External Communication

Many well-meaning leaders carry their leadership internally. They are doing their best to think ahead, notice concerns, watch for risk, and try to hold a bigger picture. The struggle is that when this is held internally, it is limited to their perspective and understanding.  You know the saying, there is no I in team. It is not that you are not capable of doing things on your own, but it is recognizing and valuing the team, different perspectives, and having humility to check for blind spots, shared alignment, and coherence. Additionally, even when a leader has committed to checking their plan, if they do not share it, the lack of communication becomes a gap to the team working around them. They are thinking it, though not saying it. They are trying to lead it, though not communicating it. Then they are surprised when others do not experience them as a leader. Leaders communicate before, during, and after.

At the motorcycle level, communication is part of leadership. Direction, ownership, risk, clarity, and movement need to become visible enough for others to feel them. This is not about self-doubt, reassurance, or self-promotion. It is about synergy and alignment with people above, beside, and below to be on the same page, catch blind spots, and know what is happening, what matters, and what comes next. Leadership that stays mostly internal may feel very real to the leader and still be almost invisible to everyone else.

• Trench: Thinking, carrying, and managing leadership mostly inside your own head
• Motorcycle: Communicating direction, concerns, ownership, and movement clearly enough for others to confirm, align, and track with it
• Question: Where is my communication internal versus where can it increase to get more synergy?

5. Fixing the Work Instead of Teaching People to See

This is one of the most challenging shifts because fixing works. There are high demands, short timelines, and work that just needs to get done.  Often, the fastest solution is for the leader to step in, solve the issue, get things back on track, and keep everything moving. It feels competent, helpful, and efficient. That is exactly why it is so easy to keep doing.

The problem is that a leader can solve problems and strengthen dependence at the same time. Motorcycle leadership is not about being the one who rescues the work. It is about helping people learn to see more clearly, think more accurately, and respond with stronger judgment. That means asking better questions, helping people notice what they missed, and working with them to build awareness they can use next time. The goal is not simply a solved problem. The goal is to build more capable people and teams.

• Trench: Stepping in quickly to fix, rescue, or take over
• Motorcycle: Teaching people how to see, think, and respond with more ownership and awareness
• Question: Where do I solve, and rescue, versus how can I help the team to grow their ability to solve it?

6. Absorbing the Work Instead of Communicating Up

This one creates a lot of frustration for helicopter leaders (the next level up) because it is challenging to stay in sync. When a rising leader takes the pressure, carries the work, absorbs the complexity, and stays deep in execution, they may feel fully engaged and highly responsible. This, however, can take the project, task, and information into a vacuum. Work has gone down into the trench and sometimes little is coming back up.  From inside the trench, it can feel active and obvious. However, the level above you has no idea what is happening.

Motorcycle leadership realizes they are an intersection of work, not a one-way street.  Without a two-way street of information, the downstream (your boss, the helicopter level, others waiting for the work) is left waiting and wondering, naturally getting restless. They ask more questions. They circle back. They request updates. They step into details that should already be handled. The rising leader often experiences being questioned, micromanaged, or not trusted. However, if they consider when they delegate something and it goes into the abyss, any leader who owns the outcome will want an update to ensure things are on track. It is not about an absence of trust or micromanaging; it is about fluid and healthy communication to keep things rolling. Motorcycle leadership communicates up and out. It helps the people above feel direction, status, risk, and the plan without having to come down into the trench to find it themselves. When a leader absorbs the work without communicating up, they pull others downward with them.

• Trench: Carrying the work silently and believing less communication means they have it, and the work will speak for itself
• Motorcycle: Communicating direction, status, risks, and next steps up and down before others have to come looking for them
• Question: How do I absorb the work, versus how can I communicate regularly for all to be empowered?

What makes this hard is that many leaders in this stage of growth are doing exactly what made them successful before. They are working hard, helping, solving, staying close, and carrying a lot. Those are not bad instincts. This is a good example, however, of what Marshall Goldsmith talks about in his book, “What got you here won’t get you there.” Those foundational activities are good and important, AND from the motorcycle, more is needed. It is not piling on more; it is elevating and expanding. It is not going faster in 2nd gear; it is shifting to 5th gear. The motorcycle is a role that requires a different level of leadership.

Advancing leaders are often highly committed, deeply capable, and sincerely trying. When we notice the patterns of getting pulled back into the trench, the goal is not to judge that, but rather to understand it and identify the new leadership behavior and skill that is needed to elevate and lead from this level.

Consider:

• Where is my leadership most getting pulled back into the trench?
• What does my role at the motorcycle leadership level most need from me?
• What would change if I led more consistently from the motorcycle level?

The more clearly the leadership level can be seen, the more intentionally we can rise to meet what the role now requires, the smoother things go, and the sooner you are multiplying yourself and systems. It is a lot of work. It is not simple and does require adapting and constant discernment, humility, self-reflection, and a growth mindset. It is worth it. It is rewarding the more this comes into focus and allows you not only to lead well but to advance others and find a new level of simplicity and flow.