How to stop being involved in every decision as a Founder or Business Owner
There comes a point in almost every small UK business where the owner/founder is the go-to person for everything.
It is not a conscious job title, it just happens one decision at a time... or one shortcut at a time.
One new starter needing help because nothing is written down.
Before you realise it, you are the person everyone goes to because you are the only one who remembers how things work.
This creates a belief that traps a lot of brilliant founders across the UK from Dublin to Norwich to Swansea to Glasgow and everywhere in between.
It's the belief that you can't step back because the business will not run without you and because you have lived with this pressure for so long, it starts to feel like a fact.
You have probably noticed the patterns:
tasks fall to you because nobody feels confident doing them alone.
managers check everything with you.
people repeat questions because there is no clear place to find the answers.
new starters spend the first few weeks trying to absorb information from whoever looks the least overwhelmed that day.
And the moment you try to pull back, things begin to wobble.
It is an exhausting cycle, and it leads to a quiet, uncomfortable thought.
“How can I step back if I need to be involved in everything?”
Let’s look at why that thought keeps reappearing and what actually changes it.
Why small businesses lose good employees when the basics are missing
One of the most common reasons why small businesses in the UK lose good employees is not down to pay, workload or the wider job market.
It is the feeling that everything is made up on the spot and when they spend too much time figuring out what should already be clear. They don't know who owns what and so they're left guessing and chasing for information on how things are meant to work.
Even the most committed employees start questioning what they're doing, when the way things are done change by the day.
When a business grows quickly, especially in cities like Manchester or London where hiring can be tough, the experience often gets left behind. The basics are never shaped properly, so your good employees end up guessing their way through the week like they're navigating without a map.
Over time, this wears them down and that's when you start seeing an increase in resignations.
However, a business with foundations creates confidence. That confidence is what helps you keep your people as well as helps an owner like you to stop being dragged into everything.
How to build a simple employee journey that makes work easier for everyone
Every small UK business has moments that repeat, no matter the size of the business or the sector you are in.
Hiring
Joining
Learning
Checking in
Growing
Handling problems
Leaving
These moments form part of the employee journey, yet in many companies they happen differently every time and that is where things begin to fray.
When these things are made up on the spot, often last minute, people feel confused.
They work slower because they have to hunt for basic answers and although they ask their colleagues, they get different explanations. They then wait for guidance from their manager who is also unsure themselves. Eventually everything makes its way to your desk, because you are the one person who seems to have the whole picture in your head.
Picture a new starter arriving in a small London or Manchester business on day one; we'll call them Jas.
Jas arrives and isn't greeted by anyone but instead they have to make their way to the 3rd floor and track someone down to tell them they're the new Developer.
Nobody is sure whose team Jas is in or who is meant to show them around, so Jas ends up waiting at an empty desk while someone scrambles to find a laptop.
Jas spends the first week shadowing whoever looks the least stressed and they learn how things work by piecing together scraps of information.
Jas doesn't want to bother anyone, so they hold back questions, until they hit a problem and have to ask their manager, who admits he isn't sure of the right approach.
So the question travels upwards again, straight to you.
You get frustrated because you think your new hire is useless but actually, this is not a new hire issue. It is a missing-foundations issue and it exhausts even the most committed individuals and teams.
A simple employee journey gives people a clear start and a clean path to follow when something goes wrong. I'm not talking about a thick document or corporate binder; just a straightforward way of doing the everyday things keep a business moving.
When this is in place, new starters walk into something organised instead of guessing their way through the first month. They know what they are responsible for and who they can go to for help. Longer-serving staff stop being the unofficial helpdesk because the basics live somewhere everyone can easily "reach". Managers have something concrete to lean on instead of relying on instinct or fear of getting it wrong. And because everyone understands how things work, the questions that normally land on your desk start disappearing.
You also see that people work with more certainty, mistakes are far less frequent, training and onboarding becomes smoother, tension in the team settles and you stop being the person everyone comes to with their questions because they know where to find the answers.
A simple employee journey is the part that keeps your business going steady even when you are not involved in every conversation and it also gives your people the confidence to act without asking for permission at every turn.
If you want your team to step up, this is one of the strongest foundations you can give them.
How to get managers to actually manage instead of asking me everything
Many business owners tell me they have managers but when we take a closer look at the reality, they're not really managing. Instead, they act as a route to the business owner, not a layer of leadership.
They don't feel confident tackling issues in the moment so they don't hold the early conversations that prevent bigger problems later.
This is why you are becoming the default leader instead of them and why you feel you can't trust them to support you; it's the exact point where things begin to fall apart.
A manager cannot lead a team if they do not know what they are responsible for or how to handle the everyday moments that come with managing people.
They need clarity, support and a simple rhythm for how they run a week before you give them full autonomy.
When they have that, the entire business feels different because everyone is rowing in the same direction.
They know how you want things done, how decisions are made and when things need to be escalated to you; escalation stops being the default action because you've given them guardrails and boundaries.
Your time opens up and the pressure lifts from your shoulders; you have a team that supports you.
This part is one of the most important foundations you can put in place.
How can I get my team to step up so I can step back?
Let me bring this to life with a recent client story.
A growing Care business in the North of England had reached that painful mid-point where things look successful on the outside but felt very challenging on the inside.
When I dug a little deeper into what was happening, I found that (amongst other things) there were no job descriptions, so nobody knew where their role ended and someone else’s began.
The managers held the title but not the practice, so almost every question landed on the owners who each gave a different answer.
New starters wandered between their colleagues and their Team Leaders looking for answers who couldn't give them anything definitive.
The owners were constantly being dragged away from the work that truly mattered and they felt that they had an incompetent team as a result.
They believed they needed to be involved in everything because they were the only ones who understood the full picture.
What had actually happened though is that they were missing these two foundations, so we shaped the basics that had been missing.
Clear ownership of work.
A simple path for new starters.
A weekly rhythm for managers so they could lead with confidence.
One aligned answer for the things people kept asking about.
Expectation setting, with boundaries so that the managers gradually became more autonomous.
Nothing we put in place was complicated, lengthy or cumbersome; there were no big documents, expensive systems or handbooks.
I helped the owners to align on roles and responsibilities for the team AND for themselves (this often gets forgotten!!), then I helped them share it with the team.
The managers received People Manager training, broken down into 2 hour chunks, so as not to disrupt the business operation.
We then worked together to agree on how to best onboard the new Care Assistants and documented that process.
The shift was immediately tangible:
Managers stepped up: "this is what we needed and have been waiting for"
The team finally knew who was responsible for what and stopped getting in each others' way.
The owners got back their time, and their ability to focus on growing their business, rather than getting involved in every tiny detail or clarify misunderstandings.
Reflection for This Week
Think quietly about the top 3 questions you hear from your people every week.
Where in your business are people still guessing?
Where do things feel difficult or a rush, or that you're unprepared?
These are your clues because wherever people guess, foundations are missing.
Choose one place and tidy it up this week.
If it's your job descriptions, don't forget to use my Job Description Template to get a head-start!
Want to talk about what's going on in your business?
I'm Maritsa Inglessis, founder of The People Keeper. I help UK business owners (usually running tech or digital companies with 10-50 staff) who are losing their employees and can't figure out why.
If you're stuck at £2-5m turnover and can't grow because your team keeps leaving, that's exactly what I fix!
My Employee Retention Mastery programme helps you find out what's really causing people to leave, fix it properly and build a team that actually sticks around long enough to grow your business with you.
Most clients cut their turnover in half within the first year and save over £100k. More importantly, they finally get the stable team they need to scale.
