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5 Foolproof Strategies to Help You Step Back and Let Your Team Have More Control
By Chris Kille | Edited by Chelsea Brown | Entrepreneur Magazine | October 30, 2024
3 key takeaways from the article
- Delegation in your business requires you to step back, and this is a very scary thing to do. Most of the entrepreneurs have the mentality that if they let go of our control, things will fall apart. Actually, it is the contrary. When you trust your team and give them the power to do something, they don’t just do the job; they grow, create and progress the company. It’s all about empowering all employees to take responsibility for the company’s growth.
- Five fail-proof approaches will revolutionize your team and leadership. By practicing shared ownership, role clarity, creating self-contained systems, promoting problem-solution orientation and establishing accountability cycles, it is possible to let go in a confident manner.
- Delegating does not necessarily mean that you are letting go of your responsibilities; instead, it entails transitioning to a different approach in which you foster leadership in your team members.
(Copyright lies with the publisher)
Topics: Leadership, Startups, Entrepreneurship, Delegation, Teams
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Delegation in your business requires you to step back, and this is a very scary thing to do. Most of the entrepreneurs have the mentality that if they let go of our control, things will fall apart. Actually, it is the contrary. When you trust your team and give them the power to do something, they don’t just do the job; they grow, create and progress the company. It’s all about empowering all employees to take responsibility for the company’s growth. Here is how you can make that leap with confidence — these five fail-proof approaches will revolutionize your team and leadership.
- Shared ownership: Invest in the outcome, not just the task. The moment your team feels they own the work, the game changes. They no longer think of the importance in terms of the tasks to be accomplished but the outcome of the tasks to be accomplished. This is not about doing more for them, of course — it is about doing more with them and empowering them to have more control over the final result.
- Role clarity: Defining responsibilities to create freedom. Uncertainty is never the ally of productivity. When roles and responsibilities are not defined, it becomes hard to avoid confusion, overlapping of duties and deadlines being missed. To avoid this, you must be very specific about who does what. This not only liberates you and your team from constant supervision — it also allows people to take responsibility without tripping over each other.
- Self-sufficient systems: Let the work flow without you. Your business should not need you at every step, at every process, at every decision-making point. On the contrary, the more you can afford not to be involved in the lower level of the team’s work, the better. To do this, you need to create systems — activities that work effectively without your direct engagement. Whether the process is a mechanical one or a set of checklists and protocols, these systems enable work to be executed smoothly without supervision.
- Problem-solution mindset: Solutions, not just problems. The worst thing that your team can do to a business is to present problems without offering any solutions. To trust your team and let go, you have to cultivate a problem-solution mindset. This means moving the culture from just pointing out problems to also suggesting solutions. When your team brings solutions rather than problems, they are demonstrating to you that they have considered the issue and want to fix it.
- Accountability loops: Build feedback systems that run themselves. Accountability does not equal pressuring someone. Rather, it is about creating structures within which people can report on their performance and are accountable for it. Accountability loops are frameworks that help your team maintain self-organization, correct mistakes and stay motivated without micromanagement. When accountability loops are established, there is no need to ask whether the job is being done or the deadlines are being met. Your team is fairly autonomous, and you can work on other strategic areas of the company.