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Delegation Paradox: Yet Another Angle On An Old Topic

September 13, 2025

When doing research on this topic I realized there are dozens of articles written with the words “Delegation Paradox” in the title. And when I mentioned that to my wife, in a kind of complaining way, she of course had a quick answer: “Yes but you haven’t written about it yet.” So here we are.

As business owners we seem to have a compulsion to try do everything ourselves and never trust anyone else with our necessary tasks. We make all the excuses for just doing it ourselves. But the truth is we know deep down inside that we could train someone on our team of employees to do most of the tasks required to run our business. And the fact is, there is likely someone in your pool of employees who could run circles around you in the performance of those tasks if you would let them.

So why do we not let them? Everyone who has written about this topic has their own version of what the cause of the problem is and how to solve it. And what about me? Well, of course I have a solution as well. Before I give it to you I have to say, there are many different solutions to this problem. My solution might be exactly what you need. Or not. But I’m going to give it to you anyway.

I’m going to lead with a quote.

“Everything rises and falls on leadership.”

John Maxwell – The 21 Irrefutable Laws Of Leadership

Everything in your business can be traced back to leadership. Or the lack of it. You might find short term success in doing everything yourself to ensure it gets done the way you want it done. But, and this is a big but, that short term success can cause long term failure if you let your ego get in the way. I would actually say that doing it all is a selfish act and in the long run you are risking the success of your business by becoming a bottleneck to all the tasks that are required to have a smooth operation. There’s the paradox. You do everything yourself to be more successful but in doing so you become the bottleneck that dooms your business to mediocrity.

Running a successful business isn’t just about sales and profit. Of course without that you don’t have a business. But, if you’ve grown to the point of hiring employees and needing to delegate tasks to them, then it’s also time to invest in some training and leadership development. Part of that includes delegating tasks to the right person and not just handing out assignments willy nilly.

There is an assessment called The Working Genius assessment, created by Patrick Lencioni (learn about it in his book The 6 Types Of Working Genius). This assessment will help you figure out who on your team is best suited for a particular task. There are many sources for taking this assessment. My wife, Ericka, is certified to do the assessment. She does the assessment and workshops for companies to help teams work better and help owners delegate with the confidence that the job will get done to their satisfaction.

This requires some self leadership as well. It’s difficult as business owners to tone down our egos. We have to admit to ourselves that there are other people who can learn to do what we do, and possibly do it better than us.

I’ll close with an example. I used to build houses. I was the general contractor so I hired all the crews to do each stage of construction- foundation crews, framing carpenters, plumbers, electricians, drywall, etc. all the way up a finished house. On some houses I did some of the work myself because I could do it for less money and I would get it done the way I wanted. But the houses I made the most money on were the ones where I did the least. The people I hired to do each stage were better, faster, and in the long run they were cheaper because I wasn’t there causing a bottleneck in the project. Take the time to talk with your team, do the assessment, and develop some leaders. If you don’t it will cost you in the end.

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That's it for this time. See you next week!

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