Do This When Your Team Won’t Step Up

You’ve built your agency from the ground up. You’ve done every role, handled every crisis, and set the standard for excellence. But now, despite having a team in place, you’re still making all the decisions, answering all the questions, and putting out all the fires.

And it’s exhausting.

My client, let’s call her Kate, was in this exact spot. 

She came to me frustrated—her team was talented, but they weren’t stepping up the way she expected. 

Every project still ran through her. She was working late nights reviewing work, rewriting creative briefs, and jumping in to smooth over client concerns. The worst part? She felt guilty. 

This question kept running through her mind: Why am I the bottleneck?

Here’s how we changed that:

1. We got clear on decision-making authority.
Kate’s team relied on her because she had never explicitly handed off decision-making power. 

👉 We mapped out what she actually needed to approve and where her team had full authority. Once that was clear, she stopped getting pinged with questions like, “What should I do about this?” because her team already knew.

2. She learned to tolerate (some) imperfection.
Kate admitted she had a habit of “fixing” things—not because they were wrong, but because they weren’t done her way. 

👉 We worked on shifting her focus to outcomes rather than method. Once she let go of micromanaging, her team gained confidence—and suddenly, projects didn’t need to go through her for approval.

3. She started coaching instead of solving.
Whenever a team member ran into a challenge, Kate’s first instinct was to step in and fix it.

👉 We shifted her approach. Instead of being the team’s safety net by giving answers, she started responding with: “What do you think?” Over time, the team became more decisive, more resourceful, and more confident in their own abilities. 

Now, Kate’s team runs the day-to-day without her constant oversight. And she? She’s spending less time in Slack and more time shaping the future of her agency.

Your agency can only scale if your team steps up. The question is: Will you let them?

💡 What’s one decision you’re still holding onto that your team could own? Drop it in the comments—I’d love to hear.

You’ve got this!