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Leadership5 min read
The owner who cannot step back
Stepping back is not a scheduling problem. It is a question of what only you can do.
Owners who stay involved in work others should own usually describe it as a capacity problem. It is more often a definition problem: no one has defined what genuinely requires the owner and what does not.
Delegation fails when the standard was never made explicit in the first place.
Start with the list
Write down the work you touched last week. Mark the items only you can do because of relationship, authority, or judgment. Everything unmarked is a candidate for transfer, along with the standard it should be held to.
The hard part is tolerating the first imperfect handoffs long enough for someone else to become good at the work.