Is stepping in slowing your business growth?
There’s a very fine line between stepping back too much and your team drowning, and stepping in too much and YOU drowning!
I spend a lot of time talking to founders about stepping back from day-to-day operations, delegating more and moving away from doing everything themselves. But I’m also careful not to give everyone the same beige blanket advice.
Running a business is a bit like parenting or coaching a sports team. It’s rewarding, can be amazing, but gets messy too. It’s rarely as black and white, or as linear as the books and gurus would have you believe.
The advice needs to fit the person, the business and the situation. Sometimes getting involved is exactly what the business needs, and sometimes it’s exactly what’s holding it back.
So how on earth do you know the difference?
Three situations and three very different approaches for you to consider:
1. You do it all yourself because it’s easier and quicker (in the short term)
You’ve got a hundred things to do, you’re already working ridiculous hours and something else comes in that needs doing.
You know somebody in your team could probably do it. But you’d need to explain what needs doing, show them how, answer questions and possibly check their work afterwards… And quite frankly, you haven’t got the time, energy or headspace for it.
You could do it yourself in twenty minutes. Getting somebody else up to speed could take two hours+. So you do it. Problem solved. One less thing to worry about. It’s now DONE!
Except next week something similar comes along, and guess who’s doing it again? And the week after that?… and the week after that?!
You keep choosing the quickest and easiest solution because you’re under pressure. I get it. But the pressure never reduces, and never will, because nobody else is learning to do the work.
You’re stuck and so busy doing the work, that you haven’t got time to develop the people you employed to take it off you!
2. You hand it over, leave them to it… and it all goes tits up!
You decided enough is enough, because you know the business cant grow if you keep doing everything yourself. So you employed capable people, you’re paying them good money, and you’ve finally learned to become a master delegator!
You explain what needs doing, tell your managers they’re responsible and leave them to get on with it. Brilliant. That’s what everyone’s been telling you to do.
Except you’re still so busy you don’t check in, and a few weeks later you discover (3rd hand!), that things haven’t progressed as expected. The work hasn’t been delivered and now an important client is threatening to leave.
You’re furious. You’ve given them responsibility, trusted them to get on with it, and they’ve let you down. So what do you do?
You jump back in, sort out the mess and conclude that your team are crap and simply aren’t capable of stepping-up and you question everything.
But hang on a minute:
Did you actually delegate, or did you abdicate?
Were they clear on your expectations, what good looked like and the boundaries of their decision-making? Did they really have the experience, information and authority to deliver? Did you agree when to check-in or when they should involve you?
Or did you simply hand it over and hope for the best?
Of course, some people genuinely underperform. But before deciding you’ve got the wrong people in your team, it’s worth asking whether you’ve given the right person what they needed to succeed.
Now imagine a different approach.
3. You develop their capability for the long term
Something needs doing, and you know the right person in your team to take responsibility for it. You’ve worked with them, understand their strengths and limitations, and have a good idea of the support they’ll need.
You agree what needs to be achieved, by when, what good looks like and where their authority starts and ends. Then you delegate and give them the space to get on with it.
You make yourself available for questions or to talk through options if needed, and agree when to check in, particularly if there’s a commercial risk involved.
They might take longer than you would, they’ll probably approach things differently and they might even make a few mistakes along the way. Anything less than perfect might still annoy the hell out of you, but you know it’s for the greater good! So you’re there enough, but not too much. You’re available to support them without judgement or automatically taking the responsibility back.
Over time, they become more capable, more confident and less reliant on you. You can start delegating more and start doing what no one else can….. And as a result your business can grow without YOU having to do more.
The cost of being the quickest person in the room
I said something on a podcast recently:
“One of the challenges for highly capable founders is that they’re often right.”
And they are!
You might genuinely make decisions faster, anticipate problems earlier and get things done more efficiently than the people around you. But if you’re always measuring the value of a decision by how quickly something gets resolved, you’re overlooking what your business needs for growth in the longer term.
Sometimes doing it yourself genuinely is the right commercial decision. But if you’re repeatedly making that choice, ask yourself if you’re actually saving time or simply borrowing it from your future?!
The quickest solution today isn’t always the most commercially valuable one for long-term growth.
Developing other people’s capability takes time, energy, patience and headspace. All the things founders often have the least of! But without that investment, your business can remain dependent on your personal capacity, regardless of how many people you employ.
So how do you decide what to do?
Before automatically jumping in and doing something yourself, handing it all over or jumping back in when things aren’t going to plan, ask yourself three questions.
1. What’s the risk?
If this goes wrong, what’s the consequence? Is there a serious commercial, financial, legal or client risk that requires your involvement, or is this something where a slower approach, a different solution or even a manageable mistake would be acceptable?
2. What’s this person’s capability in this particular situation?
Do they have the knowledge, experience, confidence, information and authority to handle what’s being asked of them? If not, what support do they need?
Remember, somebody can be brilliant at one part of their job and need considerable support with another. That’s OK.
3. What level of involvement do they actually need from me?
Do you need to step in and take charge because the risk is too great? Stay alongside them, offering guidance and support? Or have they got everything they need, and it’s time for you to get out of the bloody way?!
Good leadership isn’t about always stepping back
I was talking a senior leader through Situational Leadership in a recent one-to-one session. It’s a model originally developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, and as we worked through it, the penny dropped.
Leadership isn’t about having a particular style and expecting everyone else to respond to it. It’s about YOU adapting your approach to get the best from different people in different situations.
The same manager might need you to take charge on Monday, work alongside them on Tuesday and leave them completely alone on Wednesday.
That’s hard! It takes time, energy, thought and a genuine understanding of the people you’re leading. But it’s worth it, because you’re developing people who can take on more responsibility rather than constantly relying on you. It’s the key to growing your business.
Yes, if somebody repeatedly fails to deliver despite having the capability, authority and support they need, that’s a performance conversation, NOT a reason for you to quietly take their work back.
In my last two Observations Why Am I Working Weekends While My Leadership Team Isn’t? and WHY do founders keep rescuing people when it makes their lives harder?, I explored how founders get caught in the habit of rescuing people and why highly capable leaders find it so difficult to stop.
But knowing why you rescue is only part of the picture. The next step is developing the judgement to recognise when you’re genuinely needed, when somebody needs your support and when you’re simply getting in the way.
The goal is to build a business where your involvement is a choice, rather than a constant necessity.
Recognising something in your own business?
Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to see what’s really happening.
If something you’ve read has made you question what’s happening in your own business, your team or the pressures you’re carrying, I’d be happy to have a conversation.