How to Escape the Bottleneck

Last spring, a managing partner I work with — a mom, Jane, who runs a $9M consulting firm, has two kids, and a husband who travels for work — texted me from her daughter's dance recital.

"My team just escalated a client issue back to me. I'm trying to watch my daughter's solo on stage. I'm answering Slack. I hate this."

Jane wasn't asking what to do about the client. She was asking how she got here.

LEADERSHIP REFRAME

The conversation around women in leadership lives in the language of balance, boundaries, and self-care. Most of it is unhelpful. Balance is a moving target. Boundaries are a band-aid if the underlying work hasn't moved. Self-care is what you do because you're depleted — it doesn't fix what's depleting you.

What actually moves the needle is delegation. Not task offloading. The kind where you transfer decisions, ownership, and trust to people who can run things without you. That's what gives you a recital where your phone stays in your bag.

Jane's issue at the recital wasn't her client. Jane's predominant bottleneck type was a Hero type. She had developed this persona over time after many years of "saving the day" at her company.

Because of this, her team escalated to her to solve instead of decided. That's a pattern, not an incident. Jane's pattern got built over years of her being the one who could carry it all. The fix isn't a better boundary. It's a clearer decision map — and a team who actually has the rights to use it.

NOTICE THIS WEEK

Pick one decision currently sitting on your desk and hand it to someone on your team this week. Not the task. The decision. Tell them you trust their judgment and you're not weighing in. Notice what comes up for you when you do it — that's the discipline gap.

TRY THIS: Bottleneck Diagnostic

Jane was able to spot and name her behavior quickly because of The Bottleneck Behavior Diagnostic. It surfaces the five dominant delegation behaviors and takes five minutes. Learn more about your type, why it has developed and what to do to finally let go.

To the founders who are also mothers reading this: remember, your Most Impactful Contribution is bigger than whatever you're holding onto at work. 🌷

P.S. The 2nd edition of Let It Go releases next month. You can preorder your copy here.

Delegate Solutions provides fractional executive assistant support for founders and leaders ready to elevate out of day-to-day bottlenecks.

Committed to helping you lead with less,

Emily