Grow The Next Tier

Every thriving business reaches a point where one person - often the founder or manager - becomes the ceiling. What once felt like momentum starts to feel like weight. Emails, decisions, and issues all flow upward until there’s no room left to grow.

That’s when leadership has to shift - from doing everything right to building people who do things well.

The strongest organisations don’t rely on heroes; they rely on systems of leadership. Developing a “next tier” isn’t about titles - it’s about creating layers of ownership and capability so that progress continues even when you’re not in the room.

Here’s a simple lens to check your own leadership load:

1️. Hold – What only you can do.
Strategic direction, vision, final accountability.

2️. Hand – What others could do with guidance.
Projects, meetings, decision prep - the things you could teach.

3️. Release – What others should already own.
Day-to-day operations, customer issues, scheduling.

If you find yourself holding or handling most of the list, you’re not leading - you’re bottlenecking.

Working with family businesses, I see this happen often. Business owners hit that wall. Find themselves working 60-70+ hour weeks and still feel behind. A few days tracking their tasks, decision making, interruptions and time usage can rapidly identify the problem. Often 60 percent of their time is spent solving problems others could have handled.

To solve this we build a development plan for two to three key staff, handing over and giving them ownership of an area the leader formerly controlled. The first month is usually messy. Mistakes happen. Things take a bit longer. By month three, this has often flipped. They make faster, better decisions. The owner is freed up to finally go back to leading instead of firefighting.

The turning point isn't process - it is trust.

“Real leadership is measured by how much responsibility you can safely hand over - and how capable your team becomes because of it.”

Building leaders takes intentional practice:

• Delegate outcomes, not tasks. Let people decide how to deliver the result.
  

• Coach instead of correct. When something goes wrong, ask, “What would you do differently next time?”
  

• Recognise progress publicly. Confidence grows where trust is visible.

Leadership capacity compounds like interest - the earlier you start investing, the greater the return.

Who in your business has the potential to lead without you - and what’s one meaningful responsibility you could transfer to them this month?