#AskAdaMarie: I Just Got Put in Charge of a Project. How Do I Handle That Responsibility?
“Hi, AdaMarie! I just got put in charge of a project with real stakes and I'm scared to make the wrong call. How do I handle that responsibility?”
Dear Suddenly in Charge,
First, breathe. And then let me say the thing you may need to hear most right now: being scared to make the wrong call is not a sign you're not ready. It's a sign you understand the stakes. The people who should worry us are the ones who feel nothing when they're handed real responsibility, not the ones who feel its weight.
Someone looked at you and decided you could carry this. That judgment is data too, and it's worth trusting at least as much as the fear. So let's talk about how to hold this well.
Separate "the wrong call" from "a wrong call"
A lot of the fear around new responsibility comes from a quiet, false belief: that there's one right answer, you're supposed to know it, and getting it wrong means you've failed.
But most projects aren't decided by a single make-or-break choice. They're built from dozens of smaller calls, most of which are adjustable as you go. Very few decisions are truly irreversible, and even fewer are catastrophic. When you can tell the difference between a genuinely high-stakes, hard-to-undo decision and a routine one you're treating as monumental because you're anxious, the fear gets a lot smaller. Save your deepest deliberation for the few choices that actually warrant it, and let yourself move more quickly on the rest.
You Don't Have to Have all the Answers
Being in charge does not mean being the person who knows everything. It means being the person responsible for making sure the right things happen, which is very different, and much more doable.
You are allowed to ask questions. You are allowed to pull in people who know more than you about a specific piece. You are allowed to say "let me find out and get back to you." In fact, the leaders people respect most are usually the ones who know how to find and use expertise around them, not the ones who pretend to have it all. Your job is to own the outcome and orchestrate the path to it.
Make Your Thinking Visible
When you're carrying real responsibility, one of the most protective things you can do is not make decisions in a black box. Share your reasoning with the people who have a stake: your manager, your team, your stakeholders.
This does two things. First, it gives people a chance to catch something you missed before it becomes a problem, which genuinely lowers your risk. Second, it means that if a thoughtful, well-reasoned decision doesn't go as planned, you're not standing alone. You made a sound call with the information you had, in the open, and everyone could see the logic. "Here's what I'm thinking and why — does anyone see a problem?" is one of the most powerful sentences a new leader can learn to say. It's not weakness. It's good stewardship of a responsibility that affects other people.
Build in Checkpoints Instead of Betting Everything on Being Right
You don't have to get the whole thing right up front. You have to stay close enough to course-correct.
Rather than treating the project as one giant decision you either nail or blow, break it into stages with checkpoints along the way. Make a decision, watch what happens, adjust. This is how experienced leaders actually manage risk, by catching and correcting early, before a small misstep compounds. Building in those moments to pause, assess, and adjust turns "I might make the wrong call" into "I'll notice quickly if something's off and fix it." That's a far less terrifying way to carry responsibility.
Let this Grow You
Here's the reframe I most want you to hold onto: this project is not just a thing to survive. It's the thing that's going to grow you.
Every leader you admire was once exactly where you are, handed something bigger than they'd done before, quietly terrified, sure they'd be found out. What separated them wasn't that they never felt this. It's that they did it scared, learned from what went sideways, and discovered they could handle more than they thought. You only build the confidence of someone who's carried real responsibility by carrying it the first time without that confidence yet. This is that first time. The fear is just the cost of admission to the next version of you.
You will probably make some wrong calls on this project.
Not the wrong call but some wrong ones, small and recoverable, the way everyone does. That's not failure. That's what doing something new looks like.
Hold the responsibility seriously, but hold yourself gently. Ask for what you need, make your thinking visible, build in room to adjust, and trust that the person who handed you this saw something real. You're more ready than the fear is telling you. Now go find out.
With care,
AdaMarie
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