If You Do Everything Yourself, You Stunt The Growth Of Your Business

Doing Everything Yourself Isnโ€™t Dedicationโ€”Itโ€™s Bad Leadership. Most entrepreneurs feel that they have to do everything. We feel that we are the only ones who know exactly how to get things done. This is a telltale sign of bad leadership. Of course you know more about your business than anyone. You live and breathe it. In the beginning, every activity probably could be done more e๏ฌ€ectively by you. You probably also feel that only you will provide the necessary attention to detail. This may all be true, especially in the early stages of your business. If you are lucky enough to have a team, you say to yourself, โ€œIt will take me much longer to teach someone to do this than to do it myself.โ€ This starts with one issue, but then becomes the mantra for all issues.

“We WILL get through this together.”ย 

Your Change in Perspective

One of the most damaging perspectives you can have is believing there’s no one out there who can get the job done. We know that in early stages of your company with limited resources you will get frustrated because things are not getting done to your standards. Here are just a few of the negative implications of that mindset:

  • You Stunt Growth.ย You become the bottleneck. It is impossible for a business to gain any momentum when everything waits for you. You see your passion, dedication and attention to detail as a huge plus. Others see it as detrimental to the growth of the business.
  • Employees, Investors and Customers Question Your Leadership.ย When sophisticated individuals hear โ€œIโ€™m the only one that can do this,โ€ they question your ability to lead the company. At early stages of the business, many people you are interacting with are putting you in one of two buckets:
    • Passionate entrepreneur that canโ€™t ultimately lead the business.
    • Entrepreneur that understands how businesses grow.

When you say, โ€œIโ€™m the only one that can do these things,โ€ people put you in the first category. It is not that they donโ€™t appreciate your passionโ€”it is one of the reasons they want to work with your company. However, these individuals are getting involved with your business because of the potential for growth. When they hear this perspective, investors think, โ€œHow are we going to get someone that can run the business going forward?โ€ Employees think, โ€œWe wonโ€™t grow if he needs to have his hand in everything.โ€ Customers will not see your passion. They will see you as a single point of failure: โ€œWhat happens if he gets hit by a bus? Does that mean I am left out in the cold?โ€

  • You Undermineย Your Ability to Engage Employees.ย Senior employees will question whether your management style will give them the authority and accountability to execute, or will they be micromanaged instead. Senior employees donโ€™t want to work in a company that looks like a โ€œsolar systemโ€โ€”where you are the sun and everything revolves around you. They want to join a team with a chain of command that allows them to naturally execute in their area of expertise.

If you enable others to do more, the benefits will be exponential. More focus on the right things. More engaged employees. More people that can bring their ideas to the resolution of an issue. The ability to apply your talent to areas that need it. The ability to contribute your knowledge to an area without having to own everything.

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