Delegation Isn’t Just for the CEO
You know how you learned about delegation way back when you were becoming an entrepreneur?
What you learned then is still true (yes, even in the AI era). When you hold onto too much in your company, you run out of time. You start operating beyond your skill level.
You are wearing too many proverbial hats. And when you do that, you inadvertently stifle your own growth.
The solution is to bring in great leaders, senior leaders, who can take your vision and help you execute it. Who can own their functions and be accountable for results.
This, also, is a smart path. It allows you to distribute stress throughout the organization instead of having it all flow up to the top.
Unfortunately, it’s only a temporary solution.
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If you successfully delegate, and you have a great leadership team, and your company grows, you will eventually come to a place where you run into the exact same problem you had before.
Your leaders—maybe not all of them, but likely some of them—will start taking on too much. They will be trying to work at a strategic level and operate in the weeds.
They will be accountable to the targets they own, which means driving revenue, limiting expenses, or both. And that sense of responsibility might cause them to keep more on their plates than they should.
What happens if a senior leader keeps too much on their plate? The same thing that happens when a CEO does.
The leader becomes less effective, and despite the most heroic of efforts, growth stalls.
Job security. Inability to let go. Tendency to micromanagement. Lack of trust in their team.
These factors create a set of circumstances where your senior leaders are doing too much—you know it, and they know it—but they don’t see any other viable path forward.
People need help delegating. I certainly did, as a young CEO.
They may perceive delegation to be against their personal best interest. Or they may be laser-focused on those profit targets that prevent new hires. The intentions are typically good, but the results are not.
An overextended senior leader can starve the business.
(This, by the way, is a perfect example of needing to hold two truths.)
Senior leaders, just like CEOs, need to believe that delegating will make them stronger. That it will give them more leverage and ability to deliver results for the company.
And sometimes, senior leaders need a CEO’s help (and, perhaps, their explicit permission) to see things that way.
If you have a senior leader in your business who is overextended, don’t congratulate yourself on the value you’re getting from that team member.
Talk with that leader about how to leverage their outstanding work ethic into greater results for the business.
