Most business owners start out doing everything themselves, and for a while, that’s exactly what the business needs.
The hard part is knowing when to let go of the vine.
Delegating isn’t just about handing off tasks you don’t like. It’s also about being willing to let go of responsibilities you’re actually good at, so you can spend your time where it matters most.
There are usually plenty of things sitting in the “don’t like” and “not good at” quadrants that should be delegated. That’s the easy part.
The harder part is making sure you’re delegating them to the right person.
Too often, I see those tasks land on the same one or two people simply because they’re willing, capable or available.
That’s not necessarily delegation done well. It can just move the bottleneck down one level.
The person receiving the responsibility still needs to Get it, Want it and have the Capacity (GWC) to do it. And as a leadership team, you need to think carefully about how those responsibilities are distributed, rather than defaulting to the easiest person to give them to.
It’s a different story when you’re hiring specifically to fill a role.
Bringing someone in to properly own Operations, for example, is very different from quietly dumping more work on someone who’s already stretched.
That’s delegation done properly.
I help leadership teams work through this role by role, so the business stops depending on one person, or one overloaded teammate, to hold everything together.
— rf