For an owner, leadership development comes down to four capabilities: handing work over with the authority that makes it real, setting a standard and holding it, having the awkward conversation while it is still small, and developing people who are not yet as good as you. All four are built by practising on live situations.
A course adds knowledge, and owners often already know they should delegate more. What builds the capability is a rep, done under pressure, with somebody asking about it a fortnight later. Pick one rep for each capability and repeat it until it no longer feels unusual.
Why is leadership different for an owner?
A manager inside a larger company learns leadership with an HR policy, a grade structure, somebody above them and a cohort going through the same thing. An owner has none of that, and leads people who watched them do the job first, with their own money at stake, often needing to challenge the person who has been there longest.
The practice uses whatever is live this fortnight: the quote that went out wrong, the person who missed two deadlines, the manager who keeps checking in rather than deciding. Choose one of those situations at the start of each fortnight, decide which of the four capabilities it tests, and write down what you will do differently this time.
What are the four capabilities?
- Handing over with authority. The rep: take one task this week, write down the outcome and the standard, state the limit of the decisions they can make without asking, and agree one checkpoint. Then leave it alone until the checkpoint. Afterwards, note what they decided without you and what they brought back.
- Setting and holding a standard. The rep: define what “done” looks like for one recurring job, in writing, including the bit everyone assumes. Then hold the next piece of work to it, out loud, the first time it falls short.
- The early conversation. The rep: name the thing you have been avoiding within a week of noticing it, in one sentence, without wrapping it in praise.
- Developing someone. The rep: pick one person, name the gap between where they are and the next level, and agree one thing they will own for the next ninety days that stretches them slightly beyond comfort.
A fortnightly coaching rhythm makes sure the reps get done when the week is already full, because somebody is going to ask.
What should you measure?
Count four numbers each month:
- Decisions escalated to you in a week. It should fall.
- Pieces of work that came back to you to finish. It should fall.
- Hours you spent in delivery rather than on the business. It should fall, then settle.
- People who took on something they could not have done six months ago. It should rise.
An illustration of what the hours are worth, not a client. An owner bills £40,000 a month and spends about 12 hours a week on work somebody else in the business could do. Costed at the £65 an hour the business earns on that work, across a 48-week year those hours are £37,440 of capacity sitting in the wrong pair of hands. Move 6 of the 12 across over two quarters and you free £18,720 of it, which is most of the cost of the person you were not sure you could afford.
Where does leadership fit in Performance on Purpose?
Leadership is the second of the four levels in Performance on Purpose: you, your leadership, your business, your finances. Owners often arrive at it after trying to fix a business problem with a system, and finding the system still needs somebody to run it. The score is taken at the start, the work is done in the sessions between, and the score is taken again at ninety days so progress is measured. Write your starting score down with the date, and keep the monthly counts beside it, so the ninety-day review compares like with like.
If you want the fuller picture, Leadership Coaching explains how that runs fortnightly, and the bottleneck guide covers the decision log and the delegation ladder in more detail.
Andy Jackson is Co-Founder of Buzz and the author of Performance on Purpose, the method behind the coaching here. He writes about building the person, developing the leader and improving the business at andyjackson.com, where the courses and books sit as well.
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Frequently asked questions
Should I send my managers on a leadership course instead?
A course is useful once somebody is already carrying real responsibility and has hit a specific limit, because they arrive with a problem to apply it to. Sent before that point, the learning rarely sticks. Back in the business the same person still has no clear authority, no agreed standard and an owner who takes decisions back when it gets tense. Fix those three things first, then buy training for the gap that is left. When you do buy training, agree in advance which live situation the person will apply it to in the following month.
How do I know whether the problem is me or the team?
Look at where the work stops. If tasks come back to you unfinished, the cause is often on your side: the outcome was never defined, the authority was never given, or you have a history of stepping in that has taught everyone to wait. If the work is clearly defined, handed over with the authority to make decisions, and still does not get done to standard after clear feedback, you are looking at a capability or a willingness problem in the person. Test the first explanation before the second. Write down what you find so you can compare it after the next handover.
How long before the team changes?
Expect the first visible change in about six weeks and a settled difference in two quarters. The early signs are small and countable: fewer decisions arriving in your inbox, a piece of work finished while you were away, somebody raising a problem before it lands on you. Real change is slower because people are watching whether the new way survives a bad month. Consistency decides it, which is why this work runs on a fortnightly rhythm. Count the early signs monthly so you can see the trend.
What if I do not want to be a leader, I want to do the work?
That is a legitimate answer, so say it out loud. Some owners want a small, excellent business where they do the work themselves, and the sensible move is to build one deliberately: cap the size, price for the quality you deliver, and stop feeling obliged to grow. A business past a certain size cannot run on one person's hands, so decide which business you want and build that one. Write down the size you want the business to be, in staff and turnover, and turn down work that would push it past that.