This landed for me. I've spent 30 years working with founder-led professional services firms, and the pattern you describe — founders retaining decision-making authority even after hiring — is almost universal at the £500K-£2M mark.
Here's what makes it expensive: a founder billing at £250/hour who spends 15 hours a week on operational decisions that should sit with their team is burning £195,000 a year in non-billable time. That's not a burnout problem. It's a quarter-million-pound leak in the business model.
The hardest shift I see these founders make isn't hiring. It's accepting that 80% right, decided by someone else, beats 100% right, decided by them three days late.
Often overlooked that it burns out the rest of the leadership team too. They make one appropriate decision, founder jumps in at 11th hour to change it, walks away again, division leaders are left with the last min scramble to fix it. The product looks fine in hindsight but the process was needlessly tiring for all involved.
The "decisions don't stick" pattern you described is spot on. I lived that exact loop. I'd hire someone, tell them they own it, and then jump into a Slack thread the moment something felt off. Two weeks later they stopped making decisions without checking with me first. And I'd think "see, they can't handle it."
What cracked it for me was a stupidly simple ritual: every Friday I review my week and pick one thing I did that someone else should be doing. One task. Every week. It forces the handoff to actually happen, not just exist on a Notion doc somewhere.
The hard part wasn't finding the right people. It was training myself to stay out of the thread.
What's the most common thing you see founders hold onto longest, even after they've hired someone specifically for that function?
Nice reminder Katie about a major cause of burnout by the Founder and severe frustration from the Team.
I read an article from Mark Winters which highlighted this exact issue, titled: Your Team Is Waiting for you to Weigh in on Everything - because everything had to go through him. Every decision, every sign-off, every little thing. The team had learned to wait.
Loved his post, but especially his key way to consider every decision going forward. He shared that an effective way is to think of a tree (leaf's, branches, truck, and roots).
And then map all his team's decisions against the Decision Tree (a model from Susan Scott's Fierce Conversations).
Think of a tree: leaves at the top are routine decisions that pose no real threat.
Roots at the base are mission-critical moves that could potentially sink our ship.
Here's how it breaks down:
→ 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗳-𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹: Just do it. No permission needed.
→ 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗵-𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹: Make the call, then inform leadership after.
→ 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗸-𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹: Announce your intent first. Give leadership a window to intervene.
→ 𝗥𝗼𝗼𝘁-𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹: Full discussion required. No movement until alignment.
Once mapped, you'll likely discover that 80% were leaf or branch level. They didn't need the Founder at all.
Just by implementing this simple exercise, his team had permission to move. And they did!
Results: Decision velocity doubled in 30 days. The Founder began disengaging and so he got 15 hours back per week. And his team finally felt trusted to do what they were hired to do.
This landed for me. I've spent 30 years working with founder-led professional services firms, and the pattern you describe — founders retaining decision-making authority even after hiring — is almost universal at the £500K-£2M mark.
Here's what makes it expensive: a founder billing at £250/hour who spends 15 hours a week on operational decisions that should sit with their team is burning £195,000 a year in non-billable time. That's not a burnout problem. It's a quarter-million-pound leak in the business model.
The hardest shift I see these founders make isn't hiring. It's accepting that 80% right, decided by someone else, beats 100% right, decided by them three days late.
Often overlooked that it burns out the rest of the leadership team too. They make one appropriate decision, founder jumps in at 11th hour to change it, walks away again, division leaders are left with the last min scramble to fix it. The product looks fine in hindsight but the process was needlessly tiring for all involved.
100000% the truth. Everyone is TIRED.
The "decisions don't stick" pattern you described is spot on. I lived that exact loop. I'd hire someone, tell them they own it, and then jump into a Slack thread the moment something felt off. Two weeks later they stopped making decisions without checking with me first. And I'd think "see, they can't handle it."
What cracked it for me was a stupidly simple ritual: every Friday I review my week and pick one thing I did that someone else should be doing. One task. Every week. It forces the handoff to actually happen, not just exist on a Notion doc somewhere.
The hard part wasn't finding the right people. It was training myself to stay out of the thread.
What's the most common thing you see founders hold onto longest, even after they've hired someone specifically for that function?
Nice reminder Katie about a major cause of burnout by the Founder and severe frustration from the Team.
I read an article from Mark Winters which highlighted this exact issue, titled: Your Team Is Waiting for you to Weigh in on Everything - because everything had to go through him. Every decision, every sign-off, every little thing. The team had learned to wait.
Loved his post, but especially his key way to consider every decision going forward. He shared that an effective way is to think of a tree (leaf's, branches, truck, and roots).
And then map all his team's decisions against the Decision Tree (a model from Susan Scott's Fierce Conversations).
Think of a tree: leaves at the top are routine decisions that pose no real threat.
Roots at the base are mission-critical moves that could potentially sink our ship.
Here's how it breaks down:
→ 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗳-𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹: Just do it. No permission needed.
→ 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗵-𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹: Make the call, then inform leadership after.
→ 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗸-𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹: Announce your intent first. Give leadership a window to intervene.
→ 𝗥𝗼𝗼𝘁-𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹: Full discussion required. No movement until alignment.
Once mapped, you'll likely discover that 80% were leaf or branch level. They didn't need the Founder at all.
Just by implementing this simple exercise, his team had permission to move. And they did!
Results: Decision velocity doubled in 30 days. The Founder began disengaging and so he got 15 hours back per week. And his team finally felt trusted to do what they were hired to do.