In a world obsessed with individual achievement, one soccer player’s split-second decision reveals what leadership really looks like.
GOPENG, Malaysia — As young professionals across Asia check into “youth retirement homes” to escape the relentless grind of hustle culture, halfway across the world on a soccer pitch in Africa, a different kind of antidote to burnout was quietly unfolding.
Victor Osimhen, Nigeria’s star striker, was racing toward Algeria’s goal during a crucial CAF Confederation match. For a player of his caliber — a proven goal scorer on the international stage — the moment practically begged for individual glory. The angle was there. The opportunity was his.
And then he did something unexpected: He passed the ball.
Nigeria scored. They won 2-0, breaking a decade-long winless streak against Algeria. But the goal itself was almost beside the point. What mattered was the moment before it — that fleeting instant when Osimhen chose to see beyond himself.
The burden of the solo act
In boardrooms and on playing fields, on Zoom calls and in hospital corridors, the mythology of individual achievement continues to dominate. We celebrate the person who takes the shot, who closes the deal, who carries the team on their shoulders. We build entire cultures around the idea that great leaders must do it all themselves.
The cost of this mythology is mounting. Leaders who feel compelled to handle everything personally are significantly more likely to experience exhaustion and decreased effectiveness. The irony is sharp: The very behaviours we associate with strong leadership — taking charge, being indispensable, never letting go — often undermine the outcomes leaders are trying to achieve.
Mohammed Belaid, a leading inclusivity educator in British Columbia, watched the Nigeria-Algeria match with particular interest. “Osimhen had the opportunity to score a second goal for himself,” he noted, “but he chose to pass to guarantee the win.”
“If he was selfish,” Belaid observed, “he would have had to either go left or force a penalty. Algeria had a bad day where Nigeria was far superior.” Either path would have centred Osimhen in the narrative. Instead, he disappeared from it — and in doing so, secured the victory.
The founder’s dilemma
For Uchenna Ogemdia Okwuosa, a human development specialist and researcher in South Africa, Osimhen’s decision resonates with a daily struggle. As a founder in the early stages of building a company, Okwuosa grapples with a question many leaders face: What can you delegate, and what must you hold onto?
“There are things I hold so tight,” Okwuosa explains, “because we are still in the early stage of my company: Quality. Vision. Hard-won standards.”
He’s acutely aware of the trade-off. “Holding on too tightly to these things creates cycles of dependency and operational bottlenecks,” he acknowledges. “At this stage, I am deliberately willing to absorb some of that cost to ensure standards, direction, and discipline are firmly in place.”
It’s an honest admission that challenges the simplistic narrative of “just delegate everything.” Sometimes holding the ball is necessary. The art of leadership lies in knowing when that moment has passed.
The myth of control
Back at that Malaysian retreat, where young adults pay $430 a month to do “absolutely nothing” — no schedules, no workshops, no KPIs, no 9-to-5 — we see the endpoint of a culture that has forgotten how to pass the ball. When rest becomes something you have to buy, when doing nothing requires a geographic escape, something has gone fundamentally wrong.
The retreat offers eight acres of land, three meals a day, and “a front-row seat to ducks wandering around like they have nowhere to be.” It’s meant to be restorative, but it also represents a failure — the failure of systems that demand so much individual effort that people need to physically remove themselves to remember how to simply be.
Osimhen’s pass suggests a different path. Not retreat, but reframing. Not escape, but evolution.
What passing the ball really means
True leadership, the kind that builds sustainable success rather than spectacular burnout, operates on a different logic. It knows when to hold the ball — when your unique skills or knowledge are genuinely necessary. It knows when to release it — when trusting others creates better outcomes. And it knows that the win matters more than the credit.
“The person I can trust with the next step,” Okwuosa reflects, “is someone who demonstrates a clear understanding of the vision and strong alignment with where we are going, not just what we are doing.”
That discernment — between tasks and vision, between execution and direction — marks the difference between leaders who burn out and leaders who build momentum.
Your Move
As you step into this week, consider: Where might holding on too tightly be limiting your team’s success? Who do you need to trust with the next move?
Choose one responsibility you’ve been carrying alone. Not the easy one, not the one that doesn’t really matter. Choose something that feels risky to hand off, something where you’re convinced no one else can do it as well as you can. Then pass it anyway.
Watch what happens. Not just to the outcome, but to your team.
