In his 2009 book "Hidden Champions of the Twenty-First Century," Hermann Simon wrote that if he had to pick a single explanation for sustained success in middle market companies, "it would without a doubt be the personalities at the top." Indeed, many midmarket success stories are punctuated by the single-minded determination of the organization's founder. As entrepreneurs just starting out, they wear all the hats, from the strategic, to the tactical, and occasionally to the mundane. As their businesses scale they need to shed some of those hats, but as Simon wrote, "the strength and long tenure of the leaders sometimes get in the way of handling the succession problem sensibly."
Even before the question of succession arises, midmarket leaders must ensure they're enabling growth by moving out of the "chief cook and bottle-washer" role and into that of a true leader -- and that requires an ability to trust; to set aside authoritarian tendencies and delegate decisions -- in essence, to stop micromanaging. But as Rebecca Knight points out in a recent HBR article, "How to Stop Micromanaging Your Team," that can be a hard to do. Among her suggestions to stop micromanaging, Knight offers that you should take time to reflect on why you need that control and then re-prioritize your to-do list to what you really need to handle, and delegate the rest. Scott Liebs, in an Inc. article from last year, additionally suggests that when deciding whom to delegate to, follow a rule of thumb that if you have an employee who can manage the task 80 percent as well as you can, let them do it.
Strong midmarket leaders know how important their time spent on creating and communicating vision and strategy are to building the type of growth champions that Simon lifts up in his book -- and they prioritize their work in a way that scales their time and the business by trusting their top talent.
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