Delegate Authority Not Just Tasks

Let me tell you a story.

A few years ago I had ten team members in my coaching business. I didn’t realise at the time that my inner “control freak” was killing us all.

I didn’t trust my team to do a good job. And honestly, most of the “systems” I wanted them to follow lived only in my head.

So instead of handing over the tools and authority they needed, I handed over tasks. And all those tasks came straight back to me!

Imagine ten team members coming back to me, all the time, asking what to do next. It was not good. It was not enjoyable for anyone.

It’s one of the most common mistakes I see “business owners” make. You delegate the task, but not the authority that goes with it. Your team carries the weight of decisions they’re not allowed to make. And as your business grows, they get more and more frustrated. You become the bottleneck.

That business model made me unhappy. But eventually I realised that I was the problem. So I changed it with the help of my coach and mentor.

I took my business apart piece by piece and rebuilt the simplest version I could find. I’ve been running that version for over a decade now, and it makes me far happier.

Here’s what many of us forget...

Our team members want to do a good job. They want authority. They want responsibility. They turn up every day wanting to prove themselves.

Our job isn’t to protect them from responsibility, it’s to equip them for it. We become their coaches so that they can grow with the business. And that’s a much better situation for everyone.