You’ve started delegating, maybe you’ve got a VA, or even a few team members. Tasks are flying off your list… but somehow, your business still feels stuck.
If that sounds familiar, it’s worth asking: are you delegating tasks, or just outsourcing the actions while still keeping all the decisions on your own plate?
If your team can’t move forward without your say-so, you’re still the bottleneck.
When Delegation Still Feels Hard, This Is Usually Why
Many business owners are excellent at handing off the “doing”, but not the deciding.
If you’re still:
Approving every email before it goes out
Reviewing every client response before the next step
Rewriting drafts instead of giving clear expectations
Getting CC’d on everything, just in case
That’s not delegation. That’s micromanagement pretending to be productivity.
And it’s exhausting for everyone.
Why This Happens
This is likely not about control. It’s about trust, clarity, and confidence.
When you’ve built your business from the ground up, it’s natural to feel protective. You want things done right. You want your clients to feel looked after. You worry about mistakes.
That’s fair. And your VA or team member? They want the same thing. They want to do a good job. They want to learn how you want things done. But if they never get the full picture, or the room to make calls, they’ll stay stuck waiting for instructions.
Start Small: Decisions You Can Safely Hand Over
Building trust doesn’t happen overnight.
Here are a few low-risk decisions you can hand over to your VA or team member this month:
Deciding when and how to follow up with a lead (based on your templates)
Choosing which client gifts to send, based on a budget and guideline
Drafting social posts and publishing them once they’ve met a checklist
Selecting the right image or layout for a pre-written blog post
Approving standard invoices or recurring payments
These might seem small, but each one removes friction. Each one gives your team more context, more confidence, and more ownership.
Systems Make It Safer (And Smarter)
Want to feel more confident stepping back? Document your expectations.
Create a short guide or checklist for how certain tasks should be done
Use Loom to record walk-throughs of decisions you often make
Share examples of what “good” looks like (and what to avoid)
Provide constructive feedback regularly so your VA learns and improves over time
The clearer your systems, the easier it is for someone else to carry the ball and make decisions that align with your standards.
What Shifts When You Let Go
When your VA or team member is empowered to act, everything speeds up.
Your inbox shrinks because they’re not waiting on you
Projects move faster because no one’s stuck in approval limbo
Your team becomes more confident and more valuable
And you? You finally get to step into the role your business really needs: the leader, not the traffic controller.
If you’re still reviewing, rewriting, and rubber-stamping every decision, you’re not actually delegating. You’re delaying.
Want help figuring out what to hand over next? Let’s talk. The goal isn’t to give up control, it’s to build confidence in the people supporting you.
