My leadership team is completely overwhelmed, claiming they have no time to work on their strategic Rocks because they are bogged down by daily administrative tasks. How do I force them to elevate and delegate so they can focus on the big-picture growth of the company?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When your leadership team is too busy handling daily fires to complete their strategic Rocks, your company's growth will stall. This is a structural problem, and you must solve it by forcing them to use the Elevate and Delegate tool.

Have each leader track their time for two weeks, categorizing every activity into one of four quadrants: love doing and great at, like doing and good at, don't like but good at, or don't like and not good at.

Most overwhelmed leaders are hoarding low-value administrative tasks because they believe it is faster to do it themselves than to train someone else. This is a lie that kills scale. Force them to identify the tasks in their bottom two quadrants and build a plan to delegate them to their direct reports.

Update your Accountability Chart to ensure there are clear, capable seats below them to absorb these responsibilities. If their direct reports are also at capacity, you may need to hire administrative support or leverage AI tools to automate these routine tasks.

Finally, hold them accountable in your Level 10 Meeting™. If a leader misses their Rocks while hitting all their tactical tasks, remind them that their primary job is to lead, manage, and hold people accountable, not to do the frontline work. If they refuse to delegate, they are holding the company back, and you must address this as a capacity issue.