Our long-tenured Director of Operations gets and wants his seat, but his capacity is completely maxed out because he refuses to delegate tactical tasks to his direct reports, insisting that only he can do them right. How do we run a GWC™ evaluation on this delegation bottleneck before it stalls our scaling plans?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When running a GWC evaluation on a leader, the capacity component is often the hardest to judge, especially with a loyal, long-tenured employee. Capacity is not just about physical hours in the day; it is also about mental and emotional capacity, which includes the ability to delegate and elevate.

If your Director of Operations gets the seat and wants the seat, but refuses to delegate, he does not have the capacity for the seat as it is defined for a scaling business. Holding onto tactical tasks because he believes only he can do them is a classic sign of a leader who has hit their personal ceiling. It shows a lack of trust in his team and a failure to build a scalable department.

To address this, you must have an honest conversation. Review the five major roles of his seat on the Accountability Chart. One of those roles must be leading, managing, and holding people accountable. If he is spending eighty percent of his time doing tactical work, he is neglecting his leadership role.

Give him a clear timeline to delegate those tactical responsibilities. This is where you can use the Delegate and Elevate tool to help him identify what he needs to let go of. If he successfully delegates and elevates, his capacity will open up, and he remains a right-person-right-seat fit. If he resists or fails to transition those tasks within thirty to sixty days, you have your answer. He is a right person, but he is in the wrong seat, and you must find a leader who can build a team.