Don't let "entrepreneurial heroism" hinder your company's progress! Only letting go at the right time is truly effective leadership

The first-generation entrepreneurs are often the soul of the company. They used creativity and resilience to start from scratch and put the business on track. However, as a company grows, challenges arise: the larger the organization, the less efficient the management may be. At this point, entrepreneurs face a key decision—should they let professional managers take over daily operations?

This choice is often accompanied by ambivalence. On the one hand, entrepreneurs know that the organization needs more autonomy in order to further develop; on the other hand, they are anxious about possible loss of control and ineffective results. To break through this growth bottleneck, entrepreneurs must re-examine their roles.

The deep emotion and responsibility for the company makes entrepreneurs "dare not let go"

The first question to answer is: Why don't entrepreneurs let go? Their investment usually comes from their deep emotion and sense of responsibility for the company, and they hope that every detail will meet their expectations. However, this highly involved management style may have negative effects.

First, frequent intervention will weaken the ability and confidence of middle-level managers, making them afraid to take responsibility and even relying on senior managers to solve problems. When managers fail to perform, not only does it lead to a loss of efficiency, but it also leads to low team morale because everyone knows that the final decision-making power does not lie in the hands of middle managers.

Secondly, information transmission will be blocked. When key decisions rely on entrepreneurs, the organizational response speed will also be reduced. Creative ideas and potential improvement points within the enterprise may be ignored due to the lack of transmission mechanism, and may even be unable to be fully expressed in front of the authority of the entrepreneur.

This culture of "entrepreneurial heroism" may be beneficial in the early stages, but as the scale of the organization expands, it will hinder the company from establishing a stable operating foundation.

To be honest, entrepreneurs who "don't dare to let go" are mostly out of fear of losing control of the organization and anxiety about whether their personal value can continue to be exerted. However, truly effective leadership is not about doing everything personally, but about allowing the organization to run autonomously through systems and culture.

To overcome these challenges, entrepreneurs need to transform their roles in mentality and actions, from "executors" to "system designers." For a company that specializes in the production of auto parts, the following problems have arisen in recent years:

1. Experience is difficult to pass on

The business department underestimated costs in order to win orders, resulting in overspending during the execution phase. However, subsequent reviews were only a formality, and experience could not be accumulated, so the problem recurred again and again.

2. Loose organizational discipline

Grassroots managers lack discipline requirements, late meetings and delayed documents have become the norm, and their execution ability continues to decline, affecting the overall efficiency of the organization.

3. Weakening of management effectiveness

Senior managers frequently get involved in details, inhibiting the growth of middle-level managers, causing problems to accumulate and organizational efficiency to further decline.

Transform experience and insights into systems to maximize the value of each role

The root of these problems lies in the excessive control of entrepreneurs. The long-term operation of an organization requires structure and discipline, but these elements are often overlooked during rapid growth, exacerbating management problems. After an in-depth discussion with the entrepreneur, we jointly formulated 3 key directions:

1. Establish a hierarchical authorization system

Entrepreneurs should focus on designing long-term sustainable operating mechanisms rather than dealing with daily maintenance. For example, establish a hierarchical authorization system to give middle-level managers more decision-making power, and develop a transparent performance review process to ensure that the organization can operate without excessive intervention. This method can transform the experience of entrepreneurs into systems and lay the foundation for the continuation of corporate culture.

2. Translate experience into guiding principles

Entrepreneurs' experiences and insights should be systematized and transformed into an executable strategic framework rather than relying on immediate intervention. For example, hold regular strategy meetings with the management team to distill experience into principled guidance to keep the team aligned in the general direction. This allows you to let go of details while ensuring that the organization does not deviate from its core values.

3. Balance long-term and short-term reforms

Measures that can be effective in the short term can boost morale, such as strengthening meeting discipline and document management. But in the long run, the sustainable growth of enterprises depends on cultural reshaping and deepening reform of management systems. This requires entrepreneurs to restrain the urge to intervene and give the team more room to make mistakes and learn. Cultural construction is a long-term project that can start with some practical measures, such as establishing a failure experience sharing system, requiring departments to regularly summarize failure experiences and establish a learning culture.

Only when entrepreneurs learn to move from the frontline to the backstage can a company truly mature. However, this does not mean being completely separated from business operations, but through authorization and system design, each role can maximize its value.

The wisdom and experience of entrepreneurs are indispensable in organizational growth, but it should become part of the organizational mechanism rather than relying on the direct participation of individuals to play its role. During this process, entrepreneurs should always ask themselves: "Am I helping the organization grow, or am I becoming a hindrance?" Letting go does not mean losing control, but giving the team the opportunity to learn so that the organization can still grow without you. Robust operation.