Hey there! 👋

I used to know the answer to every single question about our campaigns. Every creator contact, every deadline, every tiny detail. If someone asked me about a project, I could tell you exactly where we were in the process.

Recently, I sat in a meeting where the team was discussing a campaign I hadn't even been briefed on yet.

And my brain absolutely screamed "WAIT, TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW."

But I didn't say that. Because that's the old me talking. The control freak who thought being indispensable was the same thing as being successful.

Here's what nobody tells you about delegation: the hardest part isn't finding good people. It's convincing yourself to actually let them do the thing you hired them to do.

I never doubted my team's ability. Honestly, that wasn't the issue at all. The issue was me. I wanted to be looped in, weighed in, and at least cc'd on everything. Not because I thought they'd drop the ball, but because being involved felt like being a good leader.

Turns out, the opposite was true. My need to be in the room (even when I didn't need to be) was the actual bottleneck preventing us from growing.

Stage 1: Panic Delegation

At first, I delegated tasks I absolutely couldn't do anymore because I physically ran out of hours. This was survival mode, not strategy.

I handed things off with zero documentation, unclear expectations, and constant check-ins. Basically, I delegated the work but not the decision-making. Not surprisingly, this didn't work.

Stage 2: System Building

I realized people can't read my mind (shocking, I know). So I started documenting everything:

This was painful because it forced me to realize I didn't actually have systems - I just had "the way Tara does things in her head."

Stage 3: Trusting the Process

Here's where it got real. I had to let my team make decisions I would have made differently. And sometimes they make mistakes.

But here's what I learned: their mistakes rarely broke anything irreparably. And sometimes their different approach actually worked better than mine would have.

Level 1: They Do, I Check

Start here with new team members or new tasks. They complete the work, you review before it goes out. This builds trust on both sides.

Level 2: They Do, I Spot Check

You're not reviewing everything anymore, just random quality checks. This is where you start getting your time back.

Level 3: They Do, They Decide

This is the goal. They own the work and the decisions. You only get involved for major issues or when they specifically ask.

Most of my work is now Level 3. It was terrifying to get here.

The breakthrough moment was realizing: if I'm the answer to every question, I'm the ceiling on our growth.

My job isn't to know everything anymore. My job is to build systems so my team doesn't need me to know everything.

Not knowing the details of every campaign isn't a failure. It's proof I'm finally doing my actual job as a leader.

Pick one thing you're doing that someone else could do with proper documentation. Just one.

Document it. Train them. Let them do it. Resist the urge to micromanage.

It's going to feel uncomfortable. That's how you know it's working.

& don’t forget, this is a 4 part series - come back next week for the last part about managing remote teams.

💜 Tara

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