How to Keep Your "A" Players #5: Grant Maximum Autonomy

Attracting and retaining talent is essential to scaling your business successfully. This is especially true for your “A” Players.

One characteristic of “A” Players is a desire to control their own destiny. They tend to be intelligent, creative, and results-oriented people who like to do things their own way, right?

So, how do you think they react to a micromanaging manager who won’t allow them to use these skills and control their own destiny? Exactly right—they’ll leave and work with someone else to make that leader’s company wildly successful.

Not good. Then you remember, “Oh yeah, what matters is that they do a good job of what they do, not that they do it the way I would do it.”

Delegation is one of the greatest obstacles to greater success that I see in my work with leaders. Entrepreneurs in particular tend to be intelligent, ambitious people with a broad skillset. They know they can do a good job of (insert job role here), and they are reluctant to delegate that responsibility and authority to someone else.

But we all know that you can’t scale up without delegating, so here are some delegation best practices. First and foremost, add people to your team that have the skills and values that make you confident enough to delegate to them. Then, agree on:

1.    3-5 broad goals for the role.

2.    Measures of success.

3.    Accountabilities.

4.    Decision making authority.

5.    Regular check-ins for celebrations and improvement coaching.

Don’t be a stranger. (770) 993-1129, tdockery@TheResolveFirm.com