Martin Stark is a business mentor who specialises in promoting courage within organisations. In this piece, he talks about how to stop holding onto your business so tightly, how to start involving others in your business decisions, and why it’s so crucial to delegate tasks to others in the first place.
Can you imagine an eager joey prevented from leaving its mother’s pouch? Of course not! It would stifle the joey’s potential and future.
Business owners holding on too tightly are hindering their own and their employee’s success – it’s a common problem.
How often do you perform activities that your team could easily do? A survey found entrepreneurs spend around 36 per cent of their working week on basic administrative tasks like data entry, invoicing, and ordering office supplies.
Not delegating and including others in decision-making is another frequent problem. Industry statistics show that 70 per cent of professional leaders are uncomfortable handing over responsibilities to subordinates.
Why is this a problem for so many business owners?
The crux of the issue is rooted in the fear of losing control and jeopardising success.
The nascent stages of building a business require owners to make all the decisions, perform most of the tasks, and assume full control. As the business grows, owners who feel they need to manage everything become micro-managers. They frustrate the team instead of trusting them.
The fear impedes your team’s access to your expertise and the wisdom they need to develop their skills, prosper, and deliver a higher quality service to your customers.
Owners have a deep bond when establishing their business. They invest their time, money and pour emotional energy building it from the ground up. It might seem risky to let things go.
They fail to develop the emotional intelligence, delegation skills, and the systems and processes which are vital for sustained business success.
What are the detrimental effects?
The problem is threefold: it negatively impacts your team, your customers, and your business. Let me break it down.
Your team: They can feel disengaged, excluded, disempowered and that their contributions are not valued. This results in poor communication, a culture or fear, sub optimal performance and low morale. Talented employees leave.
Your customers: They receive a lower quality and inconsistent service caused by the business owner being the bottleneck. They experience delays in service and decision making and unaddressed needs. They see unhappy staff being undervalued and not supported.
Your business: It damages your reputation, erodes customer and employee trust while restricting your growth and success. You struggle to meet customer requirements which increases stress. It affects your health and wellbeing.
How can business owners solve the problem?
Here are four ways you can let go:
Communicate your purpose: Sharing your business purpose instils and attracts confidence in you. It aligns with employees’ and customers’ values. It creates a sense of belonging and a deeper connection to you and your company.
Inspire and reward bravery: Model and inspire the courage you want to see in the team, encourage calculated risk taking, provide opportunities and support for your team to take on challenges, and celebrate brave behaviour.
Include and empower: Communicate openly and ask for feedback. Seek employee involvement in business discussions, challenges, and opportunities. Empower and build trust with the team by delegating responsibility and setting parameters on decisions they can take.
Invest in success: Provide training and resources for employee skill development uplifting business capabilities. Invest in systems and processes to automate tasks, improve service delivery and enable scalability.
Final thoughts
Red kangaroos leave the pouch when they are eight months old. Letting go and delegating more increases the impact of your leadership.
Your team will become powerhouse performers like champion kangaroos in a long-jump competition.
Your business will leap to even greater success!
