Why your business still relies on you
And how to fix it…
Every decision. Every fire to put out. Every last-minute rescue.
If the business still depends on you to function, it’s not scalable. You might be growing, but you’re stuck in the middle of it all.
Here’s why that happens and how to get out of it.
You never built the systems
Early on, it made sense to move fast and figure things out as you went.
But then that became the way the business operates. Decisions flow through you. Processes are vague. You end up holding everything together because there’s nothing else holding it up.
You are still the go-to for everything
The team needs your input to move things forward. People wait for your sign-off. Problems land in your inbox first.
That’s not a people issue. That’s a structure issue. If no one else owns the outcome, you will keep getting dragged back into the detail.
It all lives in your head
You know how things work. You remember who said what. You know what to do when something goes wrong.
But that knowledge isn’t written down. It’s not shared. Which means the business still depends on you to function.
You’ve trained people to rely on you
Without meaning to, you’ve built a habit in the team. They ask, you answer. They get stuck, you fix it.
That cycle is hard to break unless you create clarity and give them room to step up.
So how do you fix it
You start where the pain is biggest.
Map the work you do that no one else touches
Create simple processes for the stuff you repeat every week
Set clear priorities at the start of each week
Hand over one area and stick with it
Give feedback, not instructions
It won’t be perfect. But it will give you space and your team more confidence to act without you.
Final thought!
If your business still relies on you, it will cap your growth and drain your energy.
At Inpurpose, we help founder-led teams reduce that dependency and build something more sustainable. If you’re stuck in the middle of it all, we can help.