Over-functioning? When Doing More Delivers Less

The Challenge

Frances is director of marketing at a multinational pharmaceuticals company. Dubbed “superwoman” by her colleagues, she is well-known and respected for being smart, competent, relentlessly driven and an excellent executor. She is also highly ambitious, and a recent organisational reorganisation has raised serious hopes of a promotion. Talking to her manager, however, she is surprised and disappointed to learn that a position she’s been hoping to claim is to be filled by an external hire.

Daunted but not deterred, Frances schedules a follow up meeting with her boss hoping for candid conversation about why she has been passed over on this occasion. During this meeting, Frances receives dismaying feedback. While there is no doubt about her execution capabilities, the senior management team do not see her clear potential as a strategic leader. Frances disagrees with this; she feels unseen and unrecognised and believes that others may be taking credit for her achievements while she’s busy getting things done. But there’s more. Frances’ boss shares the results of an engagement survey taken by her direct team. The survey has surfaced strong feelings of disengagement among the team members; they report feeling disempowered and fatigued at work. Meanwhile, at home, her family began showing their own signs of strain — missed dinners, school appointments, short temper all feed into a sense of guilt and quiet resentment.

This gives Frances pause. She begins to wonder if there is something of a pattern. It’s not the first time that she has been passed over for a strategic project or a promotion opportunity. Her standard response to these disappointments is to set higher standards for herself, to work harder, longer and do more. The result seems to be the same however – she remains at the same level within the organisation while her home life continues to suffer.

Frances feels enormous frustration. There’s resentment towards her boss who can’t seem to see her potential, and anger towards her team members who are failing to keep pace with her drive and tempo. At the same time, she sees evidence of a vicious cycle in her own responses and behaviors.

Aware that something has to give, Frances takes a positive and proactive decision: to seek out the help of an executive coach.

The Coaching Journey

Frances comes into coaching knowing that she is running herself flat in both hemispheres of her life, professional and personal. Her coaching question is simple yet profound: Why do I keep taking on more, even when more delivers less?

Listening to her story, Frances’ coach wonders if she might be trapped inside the “hero syndrome:” an instinctive need to consistently raise the bar, do more, achieve more, aim big and “save the world.” This fits with the “superwoman” label Frances has earned from her colleagues and brings to light some surprising new insights.

To understand the dynamics at play, the coach brings the term “over-functioning” to Frances’s attention. This is a tendency for a leader or team member takes on more responsibility, control, or effort than is optimal, often; compensating for or resulting in other people under functioning. Unintentionally, however, over functioning ends up limiting others’ growth, ownership, and balance in the system. Frances bears strong valence to over-function.

Through deeper reflection, Frances and her coach trace the roots of this pattern to her leadership birthplace — her family. When she was eight years old, her mother fell seriously ill. Overnight, Frances had been prematurely stepped up into the role of caretaker, tending to her mother’s needs and those of her siblings. She has learned to suppress her own feelings and equates being responsible to being loved and valued. This early narrative has become the blueprint of her leadership: “If I take care of everyone, fix all the problems, everything will be okay — and I will be worthy.” Her over functioning tendency, she realises, isn’t just professional; it is personal history reenacted at work.

As awareness deepens, Frances begins to see the hidden cost of her “heroine” leadership style. Her constant rescuing has created dependency in others and has led to under functioning and reduced engagement in her team. The more she does, the less they need to do. And in many cases, this is creating resentment from the others as they miss a sense of motivation and empowerment. Meanwhile, Frances also feels resentment. She feels that she does all the work while the others simply take the credit or settle for the mediocrity in their work. Drowned in task, she does not have time for stakeholder management – which leads to decreased visibility. This cycle has drained her energy, eroded her family and sense of joy and opened the door to burnout.

Frances now has an important realization: she has been giving 100% of her time and energy to every initiative, holding herself to exceptionally high standards. But if she were to dial back her effort by even 20–30%, she would gain time not only for coaching her team and managing stakeholders, but also for other parts of her life. She can work smarter, not harder. This is a breakthrough moment — Frances understands that she has a choice. She can continue to over-function like Sisyphus, endlessly pushing the boulder uphill alone, or she can embrace a new image: an expedition sailboat, where she and her team travel toward their shared destination with collective effort, balance, and joy.

With her coach, Frances begins experimenting with several interventions to shift her over-functioning pattern:

1. Recognize the signals and create choice instead of impulse.

Frances learns to notice somatic cues — feelings of anxiety and heaviness, especially in her head, as if wearing a helmet or armor. These sensations signal that she is slipping into old patterns. When they appear, she can pause, reframe, and choose a different response.

2. Embrace the small.

As a natural “superwoman,” Frances is used to aiming high and moving fast. She now realizes she is often several steps ahead of her team. By breaking big goals into smaller milestones and celebrating micro-wins, she can help her team build confidence and enhance the connection among them.

3. Build “air” or pause time.

Before saying yes or jumping into action, Frances can pause for timeout to ask herself: “Is this really my role?” and “Will this help others grow?” She introduces short pauses between meetings and moments of intensity to breathe, reflect, and reset — shifting from heroic doing to human leading.

4. Shift from seriousness to playfulness.

To ease performance pressure, Frances practices bringing curiosity and lightness into her work. Together with her coach, she visualizes the workplace not as a battlefield but as a playground. She pictures a seesaw, representing the balance of responsibility between herself and others — the fun and flow coming from taking turns to go up and down.

The Impact

Through coaching, Frances begins developing an inner radar to detect moments of over-functioning. The seesaw on the playground has become her inner game changer — a reminder to stay responsive when she noticed herself tipping too far into over- or under-functioning.

She even playfully identifies which part of her body was “over-functioning” — head over heart. When her mind grows too loud, she now gently places a hand on her heart and listens for its quieter wisdom. As she does this, the inner voice pushing her to constantly perform and achieve begins to soften.

This practice soon ripples into her family life. She notices moments when she slips into “super mum” mode — overdoing and over-caring — or, at the other extreme, the “invisible mum.” Instead of judging herself, she is learning to rebalance, like riding a seesaw, finding the middle ground of authentic presence and shared responsibility. Peace is returning to home base.

At work, Frances begins saying no to projects that her “superwoman” self would once have accepted without hesitation. She sets clearer boundaries and manages her time more intentionally, freeing energy to connect with her team — to listen, ask questions, train and coach. Gradually, a new rapport is emerging: one built on mutual trust, growing autonomy, and genuine collaboration. Engagement begins to rise, and so does the sense of shared ownership.

Perhaps most of all, Frances has begun to let go of her anger and anxiety about promotion. She is finding joy in her work, her team and culture. She is reconnecting with a deeper sense of purpose and feels relaxed about the future. She is OK where she is, balanced in her execution and feeling more adept in her management of herself, her team and her peers. When the time is right, she is optimistic to see what opportunities arise.

Questions to ask yourself

1. How do I know when I am over-functioning – are there signals in my body, my feelings or relationships that I am taking too much responsibility and control?

2. What are the hidden costs that over-functioning is creating for my team or family – and what is the price I might be paying?

3. If leadership is about balance, where am I sitting now, and what small shifts might be necessary to bring me back to equilibrium?