When my team runs into tough challenges, I want to offer high-level guidance to help them push forward. At the same time, I worry that if I step away from hands-on work completely, I might lose the ability to give practical, grounded advice.
From a scalability perspective, would it make sense to bring in a senior member who can provide strong guidance and take on that role instead?
It's a good question, and giving your team the agency to make decisions doesn't mean you lose all direct contact yourself. For example, I always used to write a few product specs myself, and keep a few sales deals for myself, to ensure I didn't lose my feel for the business.
But, generally, you will lose your direct contact as the business grows! When you have hundreds of people you won't know what most of them are doing. By then you need to have developed executive function to ensure that they don't need you, because you can't really jump in easily anymore.
Thanks for the great insights in this article!
When my team runs into tough challenges, I want to offer high-level guidance to help them push forward. At the same time, I worry that if I step away from hands-on work completely, I might lose the ability to give practical, grounded advice.
From a scalability perspective, would it make sense to bring in a senior member who can provide strong guidance and take on that role instead?
It's a good question, and giving your team the agency to make decisions doesn't mean you lose all direct contact yourself. For example, I always used to write a few product specs myself, and keep a few sales deals for myself, to ensure I didn't lose my feel for the business.
But, generally, you will lose your direct contact as the business grows! When you have hundreds of people you won't know what most of them are doing. By then you need to have developed executive function to ensure that they don't need you, because you can't really jump in easily anymore.
That resonates deeply!
Thanks! It's such a common problem, we've all been there at some point.
If you don’t trust your team to come up with solutions and let them take ownership, they’ll eventually stop trying.