The Bottleneck Was Me: Why I stopped waiting for my team to earn my trust and what changed when I did

Last week, I wrote about Entrepreneurial Agency (i.e. EntreAgency); the idea that as founders, we have the power of choice. That our agency, our ability to direct our own lives, is either something we exercise or something we quietly give away.

Today, I want to flip that around.

Because there is another kind of agency that matters just as much: the agency we give, or don’t give, to the people we hire.

Let me tell you about the day I almost lost one of the best leaders I’ve ever worked with.

A few years ago, while running Home Care Pulse, we brought on an exceptional leader. He was the best we had when it came to sales and marketing. We hired him specifically to help us think differently, to close the gap between our sales and marketing efforts and build something more aligned and intentional.

And then I became his biggest obstacle.

Looking back, it was not complicated. I was still the founder who wanted to be the smartest person in the room. Every time he would bring a new idea into a leadership meeting, I’d push back. I’d question things more than I should have. My resistance was not about the quality of his ideas. It was about my ego and, honestly, a kind of ignorance. I was slow to let go of what had worked for me in the past, even when the world around us had moved on.

He expressed his frustration. Not dramatically, he was respectful about it. But he was clearly flustered, and the tension in those meetings was hard to miss.

Eventually, my COO/Integrator pulled me aside and brought awareness to what was happening. Then I sat down with our new leader and he told me directly: he needed me to give him the trust to move forward.

I listened. And then I took an entire day to sit with what he’d said. That day changed how I lead.

Stephen M. Covey, in Trust and Inspire, makes a distinction that stuck with me: most leaders operate on a “Command and Control” model, doling out trust slowly, treating it like something their people have to earn in increments. But the best leaders flip this. They trust and inspire first. They start from a belief that their people are capable, whole, and want to do good work, and then they build from there.

That’s the shift I had to make.

Before that conversation, I was managing outcomes. After it, I started trusting the right people more.

Self-Determination Theory, the foundation of my ARCC of Retention, tells us that people have three core psychological needs: Autonomy, Relatedness, and Capability. When you keep flying down to control the outcome, you are directly undermining autonomy. And when autonomy disappears, so does intrinsic motivation. People stop owning their work because it’s no longer theirs.

I was doing exactly that. Without fully realizing it, I was robbing this leader of the very thing that would have made him perform at his best.

Here’s what happened when I got out of the way.

He made mistakes after that. Of course, he did and that is to be celebrated. But the right people, in the right seats, learn from their mistakes quickly, course correct and accelerate faster than they would otherwise. And that was certainly the case with him. He learned fast. He grew. And over time, he became a key reason our company accelerated in ways I don’t believe would have happened if I had stayed in his lane. He continues to shine at Home Care Pulse, now Activated Insights, many years later. 

The right people don’t need you to control their outcomes. They need you to trust their competence and give them the room to find their footing. The right people won’t tank your company. But a founder and/or key leader, who can’t get out of their own way might.

At Riverside, we’ve built our culture around this belief. Mistakes aren’t something to avoid, they’re something to learn from, quickly. We hire people we believe in, and then we actually believe in them. We don’t make trust a six-month performance review exercise. We give it first. At least, that is what we are consistently striving for.

Can I still be a bottleneck at Riverside? Absolutely. My human nature to try and control outcomes can still kick in but I rarely fall prey to this old leadership paradigm of mine.

Here is why. The biggest shift I made wasn’t a strategy or a process. I stopped trying to be the smartest person in the room and started focusing on finding people who were smarter than me in their areas. I also learned to listen first and be less concerned about what others thought I knew or did not know. Now vulnerability is a trait I lean into rather than avoid.

These key changes, grounded in self-awareness and a willingness to actually listen to my team’s feedback, have done more for our culture and our results than almost anything else I’ve done as a leader.

If your team is losing autonomy because you’re holding the reins too tight, I get it. I’ve been there.

The question is whether you’re willing to do something about it.

Ready to build a culture your team can own?

At Riverside, we work with home care founders who are ready to step back from being the bottleneck and build something that runs without them. Our Founders Proven Process is designed for founders like you: to help you lead with trust, build a team-managed agency, and exit on your own terms.

Learn more: rivhc.com/founders

— Aaron

P.S. The agency you give your team isn’t separate from the agency you want for yourself. The two are connected. When your people own their work, you finally get to own your life.