The Toolbelt Test: Why Most Leaders Are Faking Competence

When the pressure hits, you'll reach for a system you don't have—and everyone will know.

Here's the thing nobody tells you about leadership:

It's not about being the smartest person in the room.

It's not about having all the answers.

It's about having the right tool in the right place when the moment demands it.

There's a funny story about Henry Ford being taken to court because of his "ignorance" and only 8 years of formal schooling. But what the court case proved is that you don't need to know everything, you need to be wise enough to know who knows more than you and to learn from them.

That's where Henry Ford was smart and where most people are stupid.

Most people leading teams, projects, or their own lives are running around like apprentices who left their toolbelt at home—scrambling, improvising, hoping nobody notices.

And everyone does.

The difference between a leader who looks calm under pressure and one who's barely holding it together isn't talent. It isn't charisma. It isn't even intelligence.

It's preparation disguised as competence.

The leader who handles the crisis smoothly? They built the system six months ago. The one who's putting out fires every week? They're winging it—and eventually, everyone figures it out.

You can fake competence for a while. But the moment real pressure hits, you'll reach for a tool you don't have. A process you never built. A system you were "too busy" to create.

And that's when people stop trusting you.

The Pattern Most Leaders Won't Admit

Let me paint the picture.

You're managing everything in your head.

You think you'll remember. You think you'll figure it out when the time comes. You think your intelligence, your work ethic, or your ability to "handle it" will carry you through.

But then the deadline shifts. The budget tightens. Someone drops the ball. The client changes scope mid-project. Your team needs an answer and you don't have one ready.

And suddenly you're reactionary.

You're putting out fires, running meetings you didn't plan, apologizing for things that slipped through the cracks, and making decisions on the fly with incomplete information.

You look like a hero when you pull it off.

But you feel like a fraud—because you know it didn't have to be this hard.

What's Actually Happening

You're confusing motion with progress. You're busy, sure. But busy isn't the same as effective. You're reacting to problems instead of preventing them. You're managing crises instead of executing plans.

You're relying on memory instead of systems. You trust yourself to remember the important stuff. But memory is the worst database ever invented. It crashes under stress. It gets overwritten. It fails you exactly when you need it most.

You're treating every problem like it's new. Even though you've solved it before. Even though it shows up every month. You start from scratch every time instead of building a repeatable process.

You don't have a protocol for your recurring situations. And because you don't, you're spending cognitive energy on problems you should've automated away months ago.

That's not leadership.

That's survival mode with a business card.

The Hidden Cost of Winging It

Here's the real cost:

Every time you wing it, you're teaching your team that preparation doesn't matter.

They watch you scramble. They see you improvise. They learn that "figuring it out" is the standard. So they start doing the same thing. And now your entire operation runs on hope and hustle instead of systems and structure.

Every time you react instead of execute, you're burning trust and credibility with people who depend on you to have your act together.

Your team needs to know you've thought this through. That you've planned for contingencies. That you're not just making it up as you go. When they realize you are? They start looking for the exits.

Every fire you put out that you should've prevented? That's energy you could've spent building, leading, or actually moving forward.

Do the Math

Let's be specific:

• You spend 30 minutes fixing a scheduling conflict that could've been avoided with a shared calendar.
• You spend an hour re-explaining expectations because you didn't document them the first time.
• You spend two hours in a "crisis meeting" for a problem you could've caught with a weekly review process.

That's 3.5 hours. Per week. That's 182 hours per year.

That's an entire month of your life spent fixing problems you could've prevented.

Compound that over years.

You become the leader who's always busy, always stressed, always "handling it"—but never actually in control.

And the worst part?

You start to believe that's what leadership looks like.

It's not.

The Pacific Palisades Lesson

Look at the 2025 Pacific Palisades fires.

Thousands of acres. Homes destroyed. Lives disrupted. Millions in damage.

And it is suspected to have started with a small fire in the neighboring forest that wasn't put out completely.

Someone thought it was handled. Someone assumed it was fine. Someone didn't follow through with the pressure test—the walk back, the double-check, the system that confirms the job is actually done.

That's not a forest fire problem. That's a leadership and systems problem.

The same thing happens in your work, your projects, your life.

You think you handled it. You assume it's fine. You move on.

Then three weeks later, it blows up.

And now you're fighting a five-alarm fire that could've been snuffed out with a checklist and five minutes of follow-through.

Preparation vs. Performance: The Line Nobody Draws

Let me draw a line for you:

Preparation vs. performance.

Performance is what people see. It's the save. The clutch decision. The last-minute pivot that keeps everything from falling apart.

Preparation is invisible. It's the calendar entry from three weeks ago. The checklist you built after the last project went sideways. The conversation you had in advance to set expectations.

Performance gets applause. Preparation prevents disasters.

Why Most Leaders Get This Backwards

Most leaders are addicted to performance because it feels like leadership. It's emotional. It's visible. It's heroic. You get credit. People notice.

But the best leaders? They're boring.

They don't save the day because the day never needed saving.

They built the system. They ran the pre-mortem. They caught the issue before it became a crisis. They documented the process so it doesn't break next time.

Nobody sees that work. Nobody applauds it. But everyone benefits from it.

And here's the truth most people won't tell you:

The leader who's always saving the day is the bad leader who didn't see the issue coming.

Saving the day gets credit because it's emotional. It's dramatic. It's visible.

But the leader who prevents the emotional rollercoaster in the first place? That's the real professional. That's the 1%.

They don't get the glory. But they get the results. And they get the trust.

The Eisenhower Matrix and Quadrant 2 Work

Dwight Eisenhower had it figured out.

He divided all work into four quadrants:

• Quadrant 1: Urgent and Important (fires, crises, deadlines)
• Quadrant 2: Not Urgent but Important (planning, systems, prevention)
• Quadrant 3: Urgent but Not Important (interruptions, busy work)
• Quadrant 4: Not Urgent and Not Important (time wasters)

Most leaders live in Quadrant 1:

• Fighting fires
• Managing chaos
• Reacting to crises

The 1%?

They live in Quadrant 2.

They spend time on the non-urgent but important work:

• Building systems
• Creating checklists
• Documenting processes
• Planning contingencies
• Training their team
• Updating tools after breakdowns

And because they do Quadrant 2 work before the pressure hits, they prevent most Quadrant 1 fires from ever starting.

That's the price of admission for real leadership.

You pay it up front in preparation, or you pay it later in crises.

But you will pay it.

The question is: do you want to pay with calm, deliberate systems work? Or with stress, apologies, and damage control?

The Leader's Toolbelt Protocol

Here's the system I learned the hard way—on job sites, in the dojo, and from watching my mom juggle two kids and a private school tuition she couldn't afford to screw up.

This isn't theory. This is how you stop faking competence and start building it for real.

Step 1: Identify Your Recurring Situations

What problems, decisions, or pressures show up every week, every month, every project?

Not the one-offs. Not the emergencies. The repeating patterns.

Write them down. Not in your head. On paper. In a note. Somewhere real.

Examples:

• Weekly team updates
• Client onboarding
• Budget reviews
• Scope change requests
• Conflict resolution
• Performance conversations
• Project handoffs

Make a list. Be specific. If it's happened twice in the last 90 days, it goes on the list.

Step 2: Build a Tool for Each One

A checklist. A pre-written email template. A calendar block. A decision tree. A go/no-go filter. A one-page SOP.

If you've solved it once, you shouldn't have to solve it again from scratch.

For example:

• Weekly team updates? Same agenda every time. Same format. Same three questions. Pre-scheduled. Non-negotiable.
• Client onboarding? Email template. Welcome packet. Intro call script. Expectations document. Sent automatically.
• Scope change requests? Decision filter: Does it fit timeline? Does it fit budget? Does it align with the goal? Yes to all three or it's a separate project.

You don't need to reinvent the wheel every time. You need to build the wheel once and roll it out forever.

The Checklist Manifesto Principle

Dr. Atul Gawande wrote an entire book about this: The Checklist Manifesto.​

He studied pilots, surgeons, and construction teams—people who work in high-stakes, high-complexity environments where mistakes cost lives.

And you know what he found?

The best performers all use checklists.

Not because they're stupid. Not because they can't remember.

Because memory fails under pressure. Because complexity creates blind spots. Because systems beat talent when the stakes are real.

A pilot doesn't "wing" the pre-flight check. A surgeon doesn't "feel it out" during a procedure. A foreman doesn't guess whether the scaffolding meets code.

They follow the checklist. Every time. No exceptions.

And that's why planes don't crash, patients don't die, and buildings don't fall (I've seen this from personal experience).

If your work matters, you need the same standard.

Step 3: Organize Your Tools by Reach

Think of it like a job site.

Your toolbelt = the systems you need every day.

• Calendar with notifications
• Task manager (not a to-do list—a system)
• Communication rhythm (when you check email, Slack, messages)
• Daily standup or review process

Your tool bucket = the resources you need weekly.

• Email templates
• Meeting agendas
• SOPs for common processes
• Key contacts and escalation paths

Your toolbox = the deep reserves for edge cases.

• Crisis plans
• Specialist networks
• Frameworks for tough calls
• Decision-making models for high-stakes situations

Most people keep everything in their head or buried in a messy folder. That's not a system. That's chaos with extra steps.

Organize by frequency of use. Make the common stuff easy to grab.

On the job site, I carried what I needed every day on my belt. The stuff I needed a few times a week was in my cart. The specialty tools were in the gang-box.

That way, I wasn't digging through a pile of tools every time I needed something. I knew exactly where to reach.

Your leadership tools work the same way.

If you use it daily, it should be one click away. If you use it weekly, it should be organized and labeled. If you use it rarely, it should still be documented so you don't have to rebuild it from memory.

Step 4: Test Your Systems Under Pressure

Don't wait for a real emergency to find out your process doesn't work.

Run a pre-mortem. Simulate the breakdown. Ask: "If this fails, what tool am I missing?"

Examples:

• Walk through your onboarding process with a fake client. Where does it break?
• Review your last three "crisis" situations. What pattern caused them? What tool could've prevented it?
• Give your SOP to someone else and see if they can follow it without asking questions. If they can't, it's not clear enough.

This is pressure testing. It's what we do in the dojo before belt tests. It's what we do on job sites before the inspector shows up.

You don't want to find out your system is broken when real stakes are on the line.

In the dojo, we drill techniques hundreds of times before we use them in sparring. We pressure-test under controlled conditions so we know what breaks and what holds.

On the job site, we run mock inspections. We double-check measurements. We test circuits before we call them complete.

Because finding the flaw before it matters is cheap. Finding it after it matters is expensive.

Same with your leadership systems.

Test them. Break them. Fix them. Then use them for real.

Step 5: Teach Someone Else Your System

If you can't explain it clearly enough for someone else to follow, you don't actually have a system—you have a habit you're calling a system.

Write it down. Record a walkthrough. Train someone.

If they can execute it without you, it's a real system. If they can't, you're still the single point of failure.

This is how you know your system is solid.

If a first-year apprentice can follow your SOP and get the right result, you built it right.

If they need to ask you ten questions, it's still living in your head.

Step 6: Update After Every Breakdown

Every time something falls through the cracks, you don't just fix it—you build the tool that prevents it next time.

This is the difference between learning and repeating.

Most people fix the problem and move on. Leaders fix the problem and update the system so it doesn't happen again.

Examples:

Missed a deadline because you forgot to follow up? Build a follow-up checklist with calendar reminders.

Lost a client because expectations weren't clear? Create an expectations document and make it part of your onboarding process.

Had a conflict because roles weren't defined? Write a RACI matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) and use it for every project.

This is what separates the 80%ers from the 1%.

The 80%ers fix the problem and hope it doesn't happen again.

The 1% fix the problem and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Step 7: Measure by What Doesn't Happen

This is the hardest part because it's invisible.

Track fires you didn't have to fight. Meetings you didn't need to call. Apologies you didn't have to make.​

Keep a "prevented issues" log. Every week, write down one thing that could've gone wrong but didn't because you had a system in place.

That's the scoreboard.

Not the heroic saves. The quiet wins. The disasters that never happened because you built the tool six months ago.

This is the invisible work that makes you a professional.

Nobody will thank you for it. Nobody will notice.

But your team will trust you more. Your projects will run smoother. Your stress will drop.

And when the real emergency hits—the one you couldn't prevent—you'll have the energy and credibility to handle it.

The Five-Point Lesson I Learned the Hard Way

First-year apprentice in 1988. Electrical trade.

My DWP instructor, Frank Simpson, used to say:

Smart guy. Terrible teacher.

He wanted clones, not thinkers.

I got a question marked wrong on an exam—not because my answer was wrong, but because I didn't solve it the way you showed in class.

Five points deducted. 100-point pass/fail exam.

Didn't matter to my grade.

But I was pissed on principle.

So I did what any 22-year-old with too much pride does: I went over his head. Straight to Pete Matthews, the apprenticeship coordinator.

I argued. I defended my work. I demanded my points back.

And I got them.

But Pete pulled me aside afterward and said something I'll never forget:

I didn't need a fight. I needed a conversation. I didn't need to escalate. I needed to present my case differently.

Right answer. Wrong tool. Poor result.

That lesson cost me five weeks of tension with Frank.

But it taught me something more valuable: you can be right and still lose if you don't have the right system for the situation.

What Frank Got Wrong (And What He Got Right)

Frank's saying was correct. He just didn't live it.

He had one way to do things and expected everyone else to follow it exactly.

That's not systems thinking—that's control masquerading as process.

Real systems are adaptable, teachable, and repeatable.

They don't require you to be a genius. They don't require perfect conditions. They work because they're designed to work.

And when they don't? You update them. You don't blame the person. You fix the process.

That's what Pete taught me. That's what I didn't learn from Frank.

Frank had the right idea about organization. Every tool in its place. Every process documented.

But he missed the part where systems serve people, not the other way around.

A good system makes you more effective, not less human.

My Mom's Wall Calendar and the System That Never Failed

My mom worked as a single parent putting two kids through private school. She couldn't afford to make mistakes or let things slip through the cracks.

So she had a wall calendar and a pocket calendar with her at all times. Every appointment. Every school event. Every bill due date. Written down. Double-checked. Non-negotiable.

She didn't have a great memory. She had a system she refused to violate.

And you know what? She never missed a parent-teacher conference. Never forgot a birthday. Never bounced a check.

Not because she was smarter or more capable than other parents. Because she had a tool for the job and she used it.

I use Google Calendar the same way now. Notifications for everything.

• Meetings
• Recurring events
• Time blocks
• Pre-scheduled reminders, i.e. birthdays, anniversaries

I probably learned that from watching her. I definitely learned that relying on your brain is a losing strategy.

Your brain is for thinking. Not for remembering. Build the system that remembers for you.

She taught me that discipline isn't about willpower. It's about not needing willpower because the system does the work.

The Excuses I Hear (And Why They Don't Hold)

Let me guess the pushback already:

"I don't have time to build systems."

You don't have time not to. Every fire you fight costs you 3x the time a checklist would've taken.

Let's be real: you're not too busy to build systems. You're too addicted to the chaos. You like the feeling of "saving the day." You like being the hero.

But heroics don't scale. Systems do.

"I work better spontaneously. I don't like rigid structure."

You're not structured. You're reactive. And you're confusing flexibility with chaos.

Real structure creates freedom. When the basics are handled by systems, you have more space for creativity, not less.

Jazz musicians drill scales for years before they improvise. Martial artists drill fundamentals thousands of times before they free-flow.

Structure enables spontaneity. It doesn't kill it.

"My situation is too complex for templates and checklists."

Complexity is exactly why you need systems. The more variables, the more you need a framework to keep you from missing one.

Pilots fly planes with hundreds of moving parts. Surgeons perform operations with life-or-death stakes. They use checklists. You think your project is more complex than open-heart surgery?

"I've gotten this far without all that. It's working fine."

Is it? Or are you just good at recovering from problems you could've avoided?

Ask yourself: How much time did you spend last month fixing things that shouldn't have broken in the first place?

That's not "fine." That's exhausting.

Put It on the Mat: Your 72-Hour Challenge

Here's your 72-hour challenge:

Pick one recurring problem in your work or life.

Something that keeps showing up. Something you've "handled" more than twice in the past month.

Now build the tool.

A checklist. A calendar rule. A template. A decision filter. A one-page SOP.

Something that ensures you never have to solve that problem from scratch again.

Write it. Test it. Use it once.

Then ask yourself: "Why didn't I do this six months ago?"

And then build the next one.

Because one system won't change your life. But ten systems will. Twenty will transform it.

That's the price of admission for real leadership. Not heroics. Not charisma. Not genius.

Systems. Built in advance. Used without thinking.

The Invisible Standard That Separates the 1%

The best leaders I've ever worked for weren't the loudest, the smartest, or the most charismatic.

They were the most prepared.

They had a system for remembering. A tool for deciding. A process for executing.

They didn't save the day.

They built the day so it didn't need saving.

You can do the same.

Hit reply and tell me:

What's one recurring problem you're going to build a system for this week?

Let's put it on the line.

—Chuck