Give away good work, not just boring parts

Owners tend to delegate the tasks they hate and keep the ones they enjoy, even when someone else on the team is ready for more responsibility. Real delegation means giving up some of the interesting work too, not just the parts you were happy to drop.

Holding onto the good work quietly caps your team's growth. People stay junior longer than they should because the founder never lets go of anything that feels meaningful, and eventually the best people leave to find work that stretches them somewhere else. I check myself on this regularly, because the work I hand off first is always the part I never liked doing.

Try this today: pick one piece of work you actually enjoy doing, and hand it to someone ready for it. Notice how much it teaches you about what they are capable of when you finally step back.