How to Lead by Letting Go

It’s time to give your employees the authority to act independently  

During the dot-com crash, I found myself in the unenviable position of struggling to keep a tech startup afloat, even as core customers and major investors were freaking out and threatening to jump ship.  

I responded by throwing myself into my work and giving the company every gram of my time, energy, and brainpower. I demanded the same from my team. During one three-week death march ahead of a major software release, with our anchor customer waiting to be dazzled the following Tuesday, we didn’t leave the office until 2.30am on a Saturday night — but I was back at my desk five hours later, hitting the phones and demanding to know where the hell everyone was.

One of our top engineers, a gentle soul who deserved better treatment, picked up the phone to hear me yelling, and calmly told me:

“Tom, I’m having breakfast with my wife. I’ll be in the office in 45 minutes.”

Click.

That pulled me up short. The engineer wasn’t slacking — he’d been in until the small hours, and went on to spend his whole Sunday slogging to hit our deadline. He was just carving out a few minutes to recharge his batteries and give his family some love and attention. By trying to police every detail of how and when he worked, I hadn’t made him more productive — I’d only stressed him out and strained our working relationship.

We buckled down and shipped the software. (Yes, I’m older than dirt; this was back in the days when we ‘shipped’ software). But afterwards, I took took stock of the situation — and didn’t like what I saw. I was drunk on work, and making unreasonable demands of myself and those around me. At the age of 32, I was on the brink of a coronary; almost as bad, I was micromanaging my team, stressing people out, and putting everyone around me at risk of career-ending burnout.  

For the company to thrive, and for me to survive, something had to change. I needed to be kinder to myself and my employees — but the pressures my company was facing weren’t going away. How could I keep meeting crucial goals and deadlines without destroying myself and my team in the process?

Let Go, Give Authority

The key, I realized, was to trust my employees to do their jobs. My company had grown to a point where I couldn’t know every detail or solve every problem, so my hands-on management style was creating more problems than it solved. It was time to start letting my team deliver results on their own — and for that to happen, I had to give them the authority to get the job done.

Giving authority isn’t easy. It requires painting a clear target, inspiring your team to go nail it, hatching a workable plan — and then getting out of the way. It also requires vesting people with the right to make decisions on their own, something that crazed, control-freakish entrepreneurs are frequently loath to do. Above all, it requires authentically trusting your team to succeed and oozing that confidence to everyone involved.

When I mindfully stepped back and empowered my employees to take charge of important projects, people I’d dismissed as docile followers began blossoming into confident doers. Several ambitious employees discovered their inner ninja, assumed far more responsibility, and became vital assets. The company scaled and grew. 

I didn’t die from an early heart attack. I got to know my kids better, and even enjoyed some time off on weekends now and then. At the end of it all, both my investors and employees were happy.

Trust and Verify

Giving authority doesn’t mean simply crossing your fingers and hoping your team gets things right. To succeed, you’ll still need to lead. You just need to do it a little differently. 

If decision-making is like painting a portrait, you need to let your team hold the paintbrush. Your job, paradoxically, is to step back from the canvas and make sure they’ve got the right tools, and that everyone understands what’s needed to produce a masterpiece. That means focusing less on who’s doing what in any given moment, and working instead to create a social architecture that encourages the right people to step up and achieve great things. 

When people rise to that challenge, resist the urge to step in and take the reins. Instead of looking over your employees’ shoulders, ask yourself: have you clearly articulated the desired outcome, or merely pointed and grunted and hoped for the best? Have you identified the major milestones that will lead to overall success? Have you given your team not just authority, but also guidance?

Once you’ve done those things, keep employees on track using a trust-and-verify approach. Ask direct reports to share progress in measurable ways. For an engineer, set up a code review. For a revenue leader working on a big deal, ask for an account plan and discuss the steps required to close it. Don’t fall into the trap of giving too much authority without putting fail-safes in place to allow you to gauge progress. You can give authority, but you still need to check in.

The Other Smart People

Ten years ago, feeling the weight of every one of the millions of dollars I’d raised from very important people, I thought my responsibility was to be the smartest guy in the room. Since then, I’ve learned that leadership is actually about harnessing the energy and ideas of all the other smart people in the room — not bossing them around, but helping to unlock their full potential. 

So next time you feel the urge to swoop in and take control of a project, check that impulse. Instead, try asking your team the magic question: “What do you all think we should do?” When you have the courage to admit that you don’t have all the answers, people start coming up with answers of their own, and taking personal ownership of your company’s success or failure. 

Give authority to your team, and I guarantee you’ll get better results — and that both you and your employees will be far happier for it.

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