Welcome to The COO Solution Podcast, the go-to resource for business owners, CEOs, and visionary entrepreneurs looking to scale smarter, lead better, and build businesses that run without bottlenecks. I’m your host, Derek Fredrickson, and today, we’re tackling one of the hardest but most crucial leadership shifts: learning to trust your team and let go of control so your business can grow beyond you.
If you’ve ever felt like no one can do things as well as you can, struggled to delegate because you’re afraid something will slip through the cracks, or if your team constantly comes to you for answers, this episode is for you. I’ll break down the hidden cost of micromanaging and share the four key shifts that will help you transition from control to confidence in your team.
In This Episode:
- Why You’re the Bottleneck in Your Business (00:14) – The hidden cost of trying to do everything yourself.
- The True Cost of Not Trusting Your Team (02:03) – How micromanagement slows growth and leads to burnout.
- Shift #1 – Trust Starts With You (03:34) – Why hiring the right people and setting clear expectations is the foundation of delegation.
- Shift #2 – Delegation Isn’t Just Handing Off Tasks, It’s Creating Ownership (04:50) – The difference between assigning tasks and empowering your team to take full responsibility.
- Shift #3 – Trust is Built Through Clear Systems & Accountability (05:59) – How to create SOPs, define roles, and implement check-ins without micromanaging.
- Shift #4 – Letting Go Leads to More Growth & Ease (08:17) – How stepping back allows your team to step up and helps you focus on the bigger vision.
- Actionable Steps to Implement Today (10:36) – A step-by-step guide to identifying what’s holding you back, transferring responsibility, and empowering your team.
Why This Matters
Scaling your business isn’t about adding more to your plate—it’s about taking things off your plate. Trust and delegation aren’t just leadership buzzwords but; they are the key to sustainable growth. In this episode, I break down the mindset and systems you need to shift from doing everything yourself to leading a team that operates without your constant involvement.
Action Steps for Listeners:
- Identify what’s holding you back – What’s one thing you’re still doing that your team should own? Write it down.
- Choose one responsibility to fully delegate – Not just a task, but an entire area of ownership.
- Set clear expectations & step back – Train your team, provide resources, and resist the urge to micromanage.
Resources & Links:
- Discover if Now is the Time for a Fractional COO: Take this quick assessment to see if your business is ready for this game-changing operational support. 👉 – Take the Free Assessment Here
- Learn More About The COO Solution: Visit The COO Solution to explore our services, discover new insights, and learn actionable strategies for scaling your business smarter.
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Transcript:
Derek Fredrickson (00:14.54)
If you want to scale your business, the first step isn’t about finding more time or working harder. It’s about learning to let go. The more you hold on to every little detail, the more you become the bottleneck in your growth. But your business takes off when you learn to trust, delegate, and empower your team. Welcome back to the COO Solution Podcast. I’m your host, Derek Fredrickson.
And today we’re diving into one of the hardest yet most essential leadership shifts. Learning to trust your team and let go of control so your business can grow beyond you. If you’ve ever felt like no one can do the things as well as you can, if you’ve struggled to delegate because you’re afraid something will slip through the cracks, haven’t we all? Or if your team constantly comes to you for answers, this episode is for you.
We’ll discuss why trust is the foundation of strong leadership, the hidden cost of micromanaging, and practical shifts and practical steps to shift from control to confidence in your team.
Let’s get into it.
So why is trust so important when scaling your business? It’s a great question to ask, but here’s the truth, the greatest entrepreneurs and business owners don’t succeed because they do everything themselves. They succeed because they surround themselves with the right people and trust them to do their jobs well.
And here’s the thing, there is a cost of not trusting your team. And in essence, you become the bottleneck, right? Everything slows down because every decision depends upon you. You might be exhausted? You’re burning the oil lamp, so to speak, and you’re perhaps working nights and weekends and taking up lots of time and you’re burning your energy. So as a result, you have no time to focus on growth if you’re constantly checking, fixing, and approving everything. And in some respect, perhaps your team doesn’t step up. They don’t feel empowered to take that next step. If they feel you don’t trust them, they’ll stop taking ownership and they’ll keep relying on you. And the fastest growing businesses and the ones that scale and have long-term success have founders who step back and allow the team to step up and step in. So if you’re stuck doing everything yourself, how do you start shifting that dynamic?
Well, let’s break it down, okay? Scaling isn’t about adding more to your plate. It’s about taking things off of it. And that starts with trust. There are four shifts about…
So there are four shifts that I want to share with you today that are going to drive the connection between trust, delegation, and a thriving business. Shift number one is trust starts with you. If you don’t trust your team, the real question is, did you hire the right people? Do you have the right people in the right seats? And building trust requires hiring well, setting clear expectations, and letting people do their job.
So the first question I want to ask yourself is, am I giving my team the space to succeed or am I intentionally or unintentionally holding them back? It might be something that you haven’t asked yourself and where would you be getting in the way of actually allowing your team to step up and step in. So that’s shift number one. Trust starts with you. Shift number two is delegation isn’t just handing off tasks, it’s creating ownership. It’s empowering your team to take ownership. Delegation isn’t dumping tasks. It’s not drive-by delegation. It’s not scattered slack messages and fragmented email messages and run-on voice notes. It’s empowering your team with full ownership. If you say, delegate, but they still come to me for everything, you’re probably assigning tasks or giving direction instead of transferring responsibility and transferring ownership.
The key is to delegate outcomes, not just tasks. Instead of saying, for example, post these social media updates, you own social media strategy, your goal is to increase engagement by 25 % this quarter. And here is what I want you to do specifically. This is what it looks like. This is the result that I want. This is the objective we’re aiming to achieve,? So just don’t give high-level direction. Give specifics and imply ownership so they understand what’s the objective? What’s the goal? What am I really trying to accomplish here? Okay, so that’s shift number two. Delegation isn’t just handing off tasks, it’s creating ownership. Shift number three, trust is built through clear systems and accountability. Trust doesn’t mean zero oversight, it means creating systems where you don’t have to micro manage? That’s not the role of a business owner and entrepreneur. You’re not here to check everything and look at every little detail.
Not only is it going to take so much of your time, but it’s probably going to drain your energy? Oftentimes, entrepreneurs don’t enjoy working in the details. It doesn’t really light them up. So here’s how you build trust through structure. You create, or your team creates for you, clear SOPs or standard operating procedures so your team knows exactly how things should be done and when things should be done and exactly what to do.
Number two, there are defined roles and responsibilities so everyone is accountable and everybody understands what they own. And then number three, regular check-ins to guide but without hovering? Checking in with the team is important but not to get into the details and micromanage. It’s often about how are you doing with the work that you’re doing and less about what are you specifically doing and give me the micro detail updates? So that’s shift number three, which is trust is built through clear systems and accountability.
Shift number four is letting go leads to more growth and ease., so when you trust your team, you get time to focus on the strategy, the vision and scaling. You get to look at the big picture and the future and where you’re headed and your team grows in that environment that you create in the confidence that’s coming from you when you’re focused on the big picture.
The team members like to get on board with that. They like to know what their part is. They like to know where we’re going. And all of that together, that environment creates a more self-managed business. So your job isn’t to have all the answers. It’s to build a team that finds the answers without you. I often say, if working with a team member, they may just take the next step, but we want them to take the step beyond the next step. Have some critical thinking, some strategic
awareness about what is again the objective, what’s the goal, what’s the end result that I’m about to achieve and then have them determine what those detailed specific steps might be in order to achieve that. So that’s shift number four, letting go leads to more growth and ease.
I’m going to give you some actionable insights. Some things to think about, a step-by-step approach to start putting this into action. Step number one is identify what’s holding you back, all right? Ask yourself this question. What’s one thing I’m still doing that someone on my team should own? And more importantly, why haven’t I delegated it yet? Is it fear? Is it lack of trust?
Is it control? Is it maybe all of those things together? When we really ask ourselves, why am I not getting myself out of my own way and relying on my team and these processes in place for them to do what they need to do, where is that coming from? Where is the root cause underneath? And it usually starts with us, with the entrepreneur, with the one that hasn’t delegated. And it might be fear, which is totally understandable.
It might be a lack of trust, it might be control, and again, it might be all of those, but which one resonates for you? Step number two, choose one responsibility to transfer fully, not just a task, but I mean an entire area of responsibility, something that is a project, something that’s a big area of focus, that’s going to be something that normally you would carry on your back, right, with everything relying on you, but what is one specific area that you could give to another team member that you can empower them to own it and Have them feel responsible and then lastly accountable to that result. All right
So just choose one responsibility that you can transfer fully as a start. Okay, so that’s step two Step three is communicate train and then step back when you set clear expectations provide the needed resources, and then give them the space to do their job. This is empowering them, but then not immediately falling back into our old behaviors of then micromanaging and checking and asking all of the detailed questions. This is a testament to trust. And when you set those clear expectations, provide the needed resources, and then give them space to do their job, they might make mistakes. And that’s fine. It’s part of the learning process. But in that mistake that might be made,
You have an opportunity to course correct, to educate, and then they feel more empowered that they can again take on that ownership and that accountability when it comes to that particular task or area or project. So your challenge for this week is to put this exercise into action and notice how it frees up your time and more importantly, how it frees up your mental energy.
When you get confident in being able to delegate, and you feel confident when you’re letting go and relying on your team. It obviously boosts your confidence tremendously and frees up your time, but that mental energy that you give back, you can then reinvest into the visionary activities that you want to be focusing on. The big picture, the future, the big idea, knowing that your team is rowing in the right direction, they know what to do and when to do it by and how to do it, and you have small, subtle check-ins and updates that ensure that we’re on track, we’re on time, things are progressing.
And yes, if they get stuck, they have a question, they need some additional clarity, you can provide that, but that’s a very different mindset and shift than the micromanaging and constant involvement in all of the details.
Listen, if this episode resonated with you, hit the subscribe button so you don’t miss future episodes. And if you’re curious if a fractional COO could be the solution for your business, you could take a free quiz at thecoosolution.com and get a personalized report on what your business needs to scale. Okay? That’s a wrap on episode four. Thank you for listening and I’ll see you next time on the COO Solution Podcast.
