Are you yourself the brake on your organization's growth?
No one can do it better than you. At least, that’s what you often think as an entrepreneur. After all, you built the company and know exactly how you want it to be. But maybe you also sometimes recognize that uneasy feeling: that your involvement – despite all your good intentions – can inhibit the organization. It’s a tricky thought: that with all your commitment, you can actually become a bottleneck.
And yet this is often recognizable to entrepreneurs: wanting to do everything yourself – from client meeting to contract. The question is really: what are you involved in? In the day-to-day operations or in the direction of the organization?
Involved or meddling?
There is a fine line between being involved and pulling everything towards you. It often starts innocently: you want to see every contract, you have an opinion on practical choices or you are called during your vacation for details. That feels safe and familiar, but also makes your people dependent on you.
Take, for example, the entrepreneur who had groomed his son to be his successor, but himself kept walking in every day to help manage. The result was unrest in the team, loss of trust with customers, and ultimately the sale of the company. Good intentions, but an outcome no one wanted. That was a painful lesson.
And it’s recognizable to many entrepreneurs: you want to help, but unintentionally your employees remain small precisely because of that. Yet less involvement is not the solution.
Your role changes, your involvement does not
Many entrepreneurs see letting go as making yourself redundant. But it isn’t. Your involvement doesn’t disappear – it shifts to the level where you add the most value. To course, vision and direction rather than to details and daily management. And that doesn’t happen overnight.
One client told me how he started by handing off one project. That went well, so he slowly built it up. After a few years, he had a solid MT and was able to focus on new markets. The company doubled in revenue.
The inevitable mistakes made along the way are often more instructive than all the successes combined. By giving your people space, not only does their confidence grow, but so does your business. And you grow along with them – because you steer more in the main lines than participate in the execution.
Being involved at a different level means being present in a different way. Instead of touching every file daily, you have weekly MT meetings about progress. Instead of checking schedules, you talk to customers about their future needs. That way you stay close but give your people ownership of execution.
The paradox of commitment
Many entrepreneurs take over work with the best of intentions: “I’ll help you out.” But you also do that a little for yourself, because you think it will go faster or because you will be more in control. After all, letting go is difficult: it is your responsibility, often your money that is at stake. Moreover, you want to live up to yourself as an entrepreneur. You want to make a difference. As a result, your colleagues drop out and never learn to make decisions independently.
This is the paradox of involvement: what you see as helping, keeps the other person small. It can help to ask yourself: am I really doing this for the other person, or am I pulling the strings because I find it hard to let go? Only when you can answer that honestly will there be room for growth, in your people and in your company.
For example, one entrepreneur told me that he thought he was taking the burden off his team by making decisions for them. “Until I noticed that it actually made them take less initiative,” he said. “When I deliberately took a step back, they flourished – and I finally had time to look ahead.”
Signs that you are the bottleneck
Perhaps you recognize these situations:
- You receive daily phone calls or emails for small decisions
- Employees seek permission rather than advice
- Contracts or files remain on hold because only you are allowed to sign them
- You sit at the table in consultations where you no longer have a substantive role
- You get frustrated when things are handled differently than you would.
- If you are unavailable for three weeks, things stagnate
These signals show that there is a lot of dependency on you. If this seems familiar, you are probably too deep in the operation.
Steps to let go
Letting go does not have to be a leap of faith. In my experience, it works to build it up step by step:
- Acknowledge that it is so – Express in your environment that you struggle with this and ask for feedback.
- Then start small – Choose a project you want to transfer.
- Make agreements – Discuss in advance what the desired outcome is and when you expect an update.
- Follow remotely – Monitor progress, but leave the day-to-day decisions to your employee.
- Accept mistakes – See mistakes as learning opportunities rather than disasters.
- Give more space – If things are going well, you can expand responsibility.
In this way, trust grows on both sides. It can be exciting in the short term, but in the long run it will give you freedom, better decisions and an organization that can move forward even without you.
Very telling is the client who said, “I thought I was losing control, but I actually gained more overview.”
Personal growth first
The growth of your business often begins with your personal development. This requires self-knowledge and guts, which is not always easy. Can you accept that someone else is doing things differently – and sometimes better – than you? Can you be proud of results you weren’t there for?
Many entrepreneurs are proud and stubborn, traits that have taken them far, but can sometimes get in the way. Just thinking about where you want your organization to be in 5 years gives new energy. It’s not so much about letting go, but making room for involvement at a higher level – where you add the most value.
It’s not so much about letting go, but making room for involvement at a higher level – where you add the most value.
Time for reflection
Want to know if you yourself are too much into surgery? Then ask yourself these questions:
- Looking at my calendar for the past month, how much time was I spending in details and how much in course and strategy?
- What decisions in my business should be able to continue as usual without my involvement?
- Where in the organization does it stall as soon as I’m not there? How long can my business go on without me being available?
What processes have I set up so that only I can handle them – and is that still necessary?
These questions are confrontational, but they provide an honest picture of your role and the room for growth.
From brake to motor
True engagement is not about details, but about direction. By looking at your organization from a distance, you see better where you want to go. And you empower others to take responsibility. It may feel like you are letting go of things, but in reality your involvement shifts: from operations to strategy, from details to direction.That is leadership. Not less involved, but involved at the highest level – where you have the greatest impact.
In that sense, it’s true: many entrepreneurs are unconsciously the brake on their own growth. The good news is that you can easily turn that brake into an engine – by shifting your commitment to the level of direction and ambition.
Do you recognize that sometimes you yourself are still too deep in the operation? Maybe it’s time to discover how you can shift your involvement to the level where you add the most value.
Want to spar about that? Feel free to contact me. I like to think along with you.
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