Most founders and CEOs secretly believe their business would fall apart without them. They answer emails at midnight. Approve every decision. Sit in every meeting. Get stuck into every problem or researching every AI tool.
They become the center of gravity for the entire organization and convince themselves that their constant involvement is what keeps the business successful. In fact, many of them wear it as a badge of honor.
But if your business can’t operate without you for a month, you don’t own a business, you have a job – and a very stressful one at that.
One of my favorite leadership tests is simple: if I disappeared tomorrow and found myself stranded on a deserted island with no wi-fi, would AgentSync still function?
If your business can’t operate without you for a month, you don’t own a business, you have a job.
The answer is yes – not because I’m unimportant, but because I have intentionally incorporated systems, processes and people to allow the business to operate without my constant involvement. I make a point of bringing in people who are smarter than I am, because I don’t believe founders have to know it all. And the more high-performing experts you have to help you, the better.
Ironically, this is exactly why my business has been able to grow.
Nobody talks about the fact that too many founders are getting in their own way. Founders and CEOs should not be the ones to manage their own inbox or approve every invoice, and they definitely should not be operating as though nobody can do the job quite as well as they can. Even a well-meaning sense of dedication can quickly turn into unhealthy dependency.
This bottleneck looks like team members waiting on their over-taxed founder for approval on decisions big and small. The time delay means opportunities get missed and customers may experience a lack of responsiveness. The founder works themselves to exhaustion, all the while wondering why scaling feels impossible.
Delegation as a growth strategy
Researchers believe the founder bottleneck phenomenon typically occurs when organizations grow and leadership complexity increases. To counter this, founders must turn to delegation to work smarter not harder.
According to Gallup, CEOs who excel at delegation generate 33 percent higher revenue than those who don’t and are able to spend their time on higher value activities like building relationships, high-level strategy, nurturing partnerships, culture, innovation and growth. These are things only the founder can do.
At AgentSync, we have developed a formula to work out how founders are spending their time and what it is costing them exactly. There is a huge difference between being freed up to do deep work valued at US$300 an hour and answering emails which someone else can do for US$30 an hour. Rather than spend my days trapped in admin, I use the simple rule that if it costs less than my hourly rate, I won’t be doing it.
Buyers and investors often view founder-reliant companies as operationally risky because so much institutional knowledge and decision-making sits with one person.
Founders often tell me they can’t delegate because nobody can do it as well as they can. That might be true, but here’s the question nobody asks: Would you rather have a task completed by you to 100 percent satisfaction once, or by someone else you can train to complete tasks to your standard on a regular basis, freeing your up to focus on activities that create ten times more value?
The lesson here is that founders should not build their businesses around themselves. Instead, they should focus on systems that scale the business without them in it. This is what will create a sustainable and resilient business in place of a fragile one. Whether it’s a holiday, being stranded on an island, illness or whatever else life throws at you, your business should not fall apart in your absence.
Buyers and investors often view founder-reliant companies as operationally risky because so much institutional knowledge and decision-making sits with one person. Some analysts estimate founder-dependent businesses can be valued 30–50 percent less than comparable businesses.
Executive Assistants as strategic assets
If you’re serious about building a scalable company, start by conducting a brutally honest audit. Once again, the Founder Freedom Formula is essential to finding out how founders really spend their time and identify tasks they could keep doing, eliminate completely, delegate to someone else or automate.
Ask yourself:
1. What tasks am I doing that someone else could do?
2. What decisions only require my approval because that’s how we’ve always done it?
3. What information exists only inside my head?
4. What would break if I disappeared for four weeks?
The answers will reveal your biggest growth opportunities and gaps which an executive assistant can fill. Then begins the transferring of responsibility. There will be a learning curve, but it’s worth it in the long run.
The notion that an executive assistant is someone who manages your calendar and books meetings is an injustice to modern assistants everywhere. Today’s executive assistants are highly trained and qualified operators capable of managing workflows, project coordination, process documentation and more. Most importantly, they are great at embedding AI into workflows so that businesses are ready for the future.
Founders need to stop measuring their value by how busy they are. The real value is their vision and direction.
They are force multipliers who drive operational efficiency and create accountability in the business. Armed with the latest technology and know-how, executive assistants build the infrastructure that allows businesses to operate consistently whether the founder is in the office, on holiday or stuck on that hypothetical island. In my own business, they have implemented automation and protected my focus, all the while embedding AI to help the business adapt.
Most importantly, founders need to stop measuring their value by how busy they are. The real value is their vision and direction. Founders make the decisions that move the business forward, and the first order of business is that everything else should eventually be delegated, systemized or automated to someone.
After all, the goal isn’t to be the engine of the business forever, it’s to build something resilient enough to keep going even if you’re stuck on an island.
