I'll start with a confession. What I'm about to write about is something I'm guilty of myself.
Like many CEOs I know, I keep a long list of things I want to accomplish. Sometimes it's literally written on a legal pad with pages of initiatives, problems to solve, people to meet with, and ideas I want to move forward.
Having a long list isn't the issue. CEOs are wired to see opportunities and push things ahead.
The problem shows up when I look at that list and assume I'm the one who needs to drive most of it. I start believing that if I just push a little harder or stay involved in enough areas, I can personally make it all happen.
If I'm not careful, that mindset turns me, as the CEO, into the bottleneck. Too many decisions, initiatives, and problems start depending on one person.
The tricky part is that it can be hard to see when it's happening or how to get out of it.
I see this in our CEO peer groups all the time. A CEO walks through a significant project they're personally trying to move forward. In their mind, that level of ownership is leadership. To the rest of the room, it's often obvious that the CEO needs to delegate.
That outside perspective matters. When you're close to the work every day, it's easy to miss the moment when staying involved stops helping and starts slowing things down.
1. Decisions Still End Up With You
If most meaningful decisions still come back to the CEO, the organization can only move so fast. Leaders hesitate or wait because they are unsure how much authority they really have.
2. Your Team Brings Problems Instead of Recommendations
When leaders consistently bring issues for the CEO to solve rather than coming with a point of view, it often means the organization has learned that the CEO will eventually step in anyway.
3. You're Personally Driving Too Many Initiatives
CEOs are natural idea generators. The challenge comes when several initiatives are underway and the CEO is personally involved in most of them. At that point, progress becomes limited by the CEO's time and attention.
4. Projects Lose Momentum Without You
If initiatives stall until you weigh in or push things forward, it's a sign that the organization may be relying too heavily on the CEO to create momentum.
5. Things Move Faster When You Step Away
Some CEOs notice that when they travel or step away for a few days, decisions get made and teams move forward. That usually means the capability already exists inside the organization, but too much authority has been centered around the CEO.
The formula for scaling a company isn't complicated, even if executing it is. Hire the right people. Give them clear priorities. Then allow them to actually do their jobs. When CEOs hold on to too much, the organization becomes limited by one person's capacity. When they step back and allow their leadership team to lead, the company stops moving at the speed of the CEO and starts moving at the speed of the team.
This is something we feel strongly enough about that when we run strategic planning sessions through our Strategic Ascent process, we don't allow the CEO to own a goal. The leadership team owns the company's most important priorities and drives those initiatives forward.
In one case we saw this shift happen during an annual planning session. The team set clear strategic priorities and worked through several issues that had been difficult to resolve in the past. The CEO, who had previously been a bottleneck in some of these areas, used the process to step back from micromanaging while remaining confident that the right issues were being addressed.
Not surprisingly, some CEOs push back at first. Many want to take on a goal themselves, and some want to own several. That instinct is understandable, but it usually proves the point. At some point the CEO has to move from personally driving the work to enabling the team to drive it.
So here's the question: Are you the problem?
If you are, pick one thing on that list and hand it to someone on your team this week. That's where it starts.
