Imagine this: your small business is thriving on paper. You’ve grown from 10 to 15 team members, increased revenue by 30% last year, and your Net Promoter Score (NPS) proudly sits at 9/10. But behind the scenes, your picture looks quite different.
You, as the owner, are working 70+ hour weeks. Every time you turn around you’re getting questions from your team members, you hop off a meeting and have 20 new Slack messages that came in, and your executive assistant wants to know if he can reschedule 2 of your meetings.
Sound familiar?
Too often all paths lead back to you as the business owner – you’re the single point of validation – the final reviewer, the default decision-maker, the ultimate problem-solver. Simply put, you’ve become the bottleneck in your business.
This isn’t uncommon. Most business owners find themselves drowning in team requests at some point. And it’s not because you have a bad team. In fact, you have all the right people in the right seats.
You’re drowning because you haven’t trained them to think independently and function autonomously.
Below are 5 of my top business leadership strategies to shift your approach to one of empowerment, so your team can start thinking and executing more independently. By the end, you’ll be equipped with actionable insights you can put into play today.
1. Nix the Answers
- STOP giving them the answers to every question.
- START asking open-ended questions, like ‘what are the two best solutions you see?’, ‘what do you think the long-term impact is?’, or ‘where would you start?’
As a business owner, it might seem more efficient to simply answer every question your team throws your way. In the early stages, when processes are still being documented and roles are fluid, this approach can feel like a lifesaver; not to mention it’s more efficient in the short-term. But as your business grows, this bad habit quickly turns into a crutch. By always providing the answer, you risk cementing yourself as the sole subject matter expert, preventing your team from developing their expertise.
You also deprive them of the opportunity to think critically. They learn to rely on you for solutions, which not only hampers their creative input but also dilutes their sense of ownership. Imagine a scenario where a team member faces a challenge and instead of exploring options, they simply wait for your validation. Over time, this habit snowballs into a culture where proactive problem-solving takes a backseat.
By shifting your approach and prompting your team with questions, you encourage them to explore possibilities, evaluate consequences, and arrive at solutions on their own. This not only boosts their confidence but also lightens your load. The transformation is simple: when you stop giving them the answers, you start training your team to think ahead and become self-reliant.
2. Play the ‘Yes…and…’ Game
- STOP immediately evaluating ideas in brainstorming sessions.
- START playing Shirzad Chamine’s game of ‘yes…and…’, where you comment on one thing you like from an idea and add a new idea that builds off of it until you have a team-generated list that you can evaluate.
This leadership strategy can seem counterintuitive at first – we instinctively want to filter ideas immediately, jumping on the good ones and discarding the rest. But if you master the ability to pause and allow during meetings, you’ll set your team up for more creativity and innovation than rapid-fire judgement will net you.
When you pause on judging, you exponentially increase the amount of ideas from your team because they aren’t afraid of being shot down right away or giving a ‘bad’ idea. Simply switching to acknowledging what you like about the idea (‘yes, I like that your idea…’) and building on it (‘…and I think we could take it another level with …’) not only validates the original generator, but creates space for further explanation.
By pausing judgment, you lead your team to contributing more freely. They no longer fear that their ideas will be shot down the moment they’re voiced. As a result, the brainstorming session transforms into an incubator for innovation—where even seemingly impractical ideas can serve as stepping stones to breakthrough solutions. Like Shirzad says in Positive Intelligence, while you may end up with only a fraction that are viable to move forward with, you’ve created momentum among your team and empowered individual contributors to help catalyze success.
3. Create Proven Process Playbooks (PPPs)
- STOP expecting your team to think like you.
- START giving your team proven process playbooks across each service/dept.
Too often, I see business owners assume – or worse – expect, their team to think like they do. While it’s tempting to assume that everyone on your team should naturally mirror your way of thinking, especially since you built the business from the ground up, you’ll often find yourself at a dead end.
Unless your team has a truly detailed vivid vision painted for them, the full context and background of the project or task, and the same skills background as you, they likely aren’t going to mirror you. Even with these all the same, you’d likely still see theoretical differences.
Instead, provide them the framework, structure, and process to approach their work using the same methodology you would. How can you do this? Through expanding your proven process.
Yes, you have your overarching proven process (or you should, if you don’t then send me a message and we’ll work through what yours looks like), but if your team doesn’t know how to apply it to their specific roles, they’ll struggle to make decisions that align with your vision.
For example:
- How does the proven process shape messaging and lead generation for your marketing team?
- How does it inform and underscore the culture your community manager is building?
- Is your course builder using it to capture the learning flow and format in your courses?
This goes beyond documenting processes. When you give your team the framework, you give them guided autonomy – they’re making independent, strategic decisions that align with your goals, mission, and vision.
4. Fail forward
- STOP hiding your errors behind closed doors.
- START embracing the learning opportunity from mistakes, and share them with your team.
When you openly acknowledge mistakes and share what you’ve learned, your leadership strategy fosters a culture of authenticity and transparency, and you don’t stifle innovation out of fear. This openness not only builds trust within your team but also encourages everyone to craft calculated solutions without the fear of harsh judgment because innovation is celebrated.
How can you practice this?
- Own Up Publicly: When things don’t go as planned, explain what happened and what you learned from it. Your vulnerability can be incredibly empowering for your team.
- Analyze Together: Use mistakes as learning opportunities. Discuss what went wrong, brainstorm ways to avoid similar pitfalls, and highlight the learning points.
- Celebrate the Process: Remind your team that innovation often comes through trial and error. Celebrate the effort and ingenuity even if the outcome wasn’t perfect.
Your team is watching how you adjust to errors, your willingness to learn from setbacks, and if you confidently take initiative with new ideas. When you show them what learning looks like they’ll follow your lead.
5. Ask for clarity
- STOP assessing against only yourself.
- START asking ‘help me understand’ type questions to gain clarity on why something was done, presented, or constructed a certain way.
It’s easy to assume you know why a team member made a particular decision or came up with the solution they did, especially when you’re juggling multiple responsibilities. But at best, you’re missing out on hidden genius, and at worst, your team can feel unheard and invalidated.
Asking questions does more than just clarify details, it shows your team that you value their perspective.This not only helps your understanding to guide them if they were misaligned, but also opens the door to ingenuity and richer outcomes.
By seeking clarity instead of imposing your own assumptions, you encourage a collaborative environment where every member feels heard and respected because they know you embrace multiple paths to the same solution.
Growing a Team Takes Time
Building a high-performing, autonomous team isn’t an overnight process. It takes time, patience, and a commitment to evolving your leadership style. Each of the strategies above is a step toward moving from a role where you are the default problem solver to one where you empower your team to take charge.
The shift from being the perpetual problem solver to a strategic Visionary is within your grasp. If you’re ready to break free from the bottleneck, I invite you to reach out. Connect with me for expert leadership training, insightful team workshops, or personalized coaching sessions.
You’ve invested into your business. Have you invested in your team? Embrace these business leadership strategies and invest in your team’s growth. If you do, you’ll have a team that’s all rowing in the same direction…and you won’t be afraid to open Slack, either.
Ready to elevate your business? Discover the power of working with an experienced OBM that can help you break free from the bottleneck and break through to where you want to be!
She’d love to meet you!
Founder of Tracy Murray Creative Services – I’m a Fractional Integrator and Business Strategist helping entrepreneurs build and scale soul-aligned businesses with growth-focused strategy, efficient operations, and empowered teams. Together, we’ll redefine what 10xing your business looks like to liberate your time, lead with clarity, and build without burnout.
