I want to step back from daily operations so I can focus on our exit strategy, but every time my leadership team makes a major decision without me, I step in and override them because I do not trust their judgment. How do I break this bottleneck?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If you are constantly overriding your leadership team, you are committing a classic entrepreneurial sin, you are refusing to let go of the vine. By doing this, you are actively training your team to stop thinking, stop taking ownership, and wait for your permission on everything. To break this cycle, you must first look at your Accountability Chart. Are you still occupying an operational seat that you should have delegated? If you are still acting as the Integrator or running a department, you must transition those roles to capable leaders who GWC them. Once your seats are clear, you must establish strict decision making boundaries. Use your weekly Level 10 Meeting to let your team solve problems. When an issue arises, resist the urge to jump in with your solution. Instead, ask questions and force them to propose the resolution. If their solution is eighty percent as good as yours, you must let them run with it. You must also accept that they will occasionally make mistakes. A healthy leadership team learns from failure. Use your quarterly offsites to review these missteps objectively, without finger pointing, and adjust your processes accordingly. If you truly cannot trust your team to make decisions even after clarifying roles and boundaries, then you either have the wrong people in those seats or you do not actually want to exit. If you want to sell your business for a premium, you must prove to buyers that the company can run seamlessly without you.