Jeremy Macliver is a business coach that helps leaders build market-dominating companies through leadership, growth, and brand identity.
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We’re doers. It’s how we got here. We see what needs doing, and we do it. And we keep taking more on and more on and more on, until one day we feel … like a “more-on.”
You know the feeling: when you’re too buried to think straight. Too busy to do it right.
But we’re doers, so we just push harder. Until there is a breaking point.
So why don’t we let go of things? The unfortunate truth is: because we’re doers. We get stuff done, and that has become part of our identity and our modus operandi.
The Do-Nothing Leader
I had a leader who took on several massive goals every quarter. At first it really impressed his business partners. They were dazzled by how much he was willing to carry. But after a while they got frustrated with him. Not because he wasn’t hitting the goals, but because he wasn’t “doing” anything.
Here’s what he actually did. Each quarter he’d take on several huge goals, then bring them back to his team with a ton of excitement. “This is what we’re doing,” he’d share. Then he’d collaborate with all of them, figuring out how each person could own a piece of it. Weekly, he’d check in with them, cheer them on and remove obstacles. At the end of the quarter, massive things were accomplished in the company. The next quarter, he would do it all over again.
But some of his business partners resented it because, in their eyes, he wasn’t doing anything. He was getting everybody else to do it.
As leaders, we can place this same judgment on ourselves, but remember that we get measured on what we get done, not on what we do.
Ultimately, with the leader I’m talking about, the team grew, and the other leaders had to start recognizing that their holding on to “doing” was actually holding the company back. One by one, they began to let go so the company could scale.
Unfortunately, all too often, we hold onto things to be productive, but instead, we hold the company back.
How To Let Go In Three Easy Steps
There are three ways to let go of stuff, and we need to recognize when to use each one. We tend to hear “delegate” and “elevate” as if they are one thing, but there are actually three levels: hand off, delegate and elevate.
With a handoff, you get an extra hand. By delegating, you get an extra mind. By elevating, you get an extra skill.
1. Hand Off: Getting An Extra Hand
This is the simplest version: You tell someone to go do a specific thing and come back.
It’s what we do with very young kids when we teach them how to clean up. We say “put this away,” and they come back. Then we tell them the next thing to put away.
You’re not offloading the thinking. You still own the what, the how and the when. You’re just getting an extra pair of hands to execute what’s already in your head.
Sometimes that’s all we need, so it’s the fastest path to freedom. The leader I mentioned earlier used this method for several of the more intricate and complicated parts of the massive goals. He would tell his team what was needed; they could ask questions, get clarity and then execute. Because the goals were massive and new, they required a lot of check-ins, but the team didn’t view this as micromanaging. Instead, it was collaborating. They knew their boss trusted them, and they felt like they were working hand in hand with him.
2. Delegate: Getting An Extra Mind
Handoffs work great in one-off projects and while accomplishing things that you, or the team, have never done before. Once it gets into a rhythm, we want to switch to delegating.
Here, you transfer something to someone else entirely. You take what you know how to do, you train them on it and then they own it. They eventually run it without you thinking about it at all. It’s off your plate and out of your head. Your mind is free to move to the next thing.
This should be used for all repetitive tasks.
3. Elevate: Getting An Extra Capability
As you grow, the company can find itself stuck, limited not by markets or by ambition but by skill and capability. This is when Elevate comes into place. This is when you bring in someone who can do what you can’t.
You hire for a skill you don’t have. Now the business can do something it literally couldn’t do before, because you added capability.
Using The Three Levels Of Letting Go
“Just get it done myself” is holding you, your team and your company back. The doer proves themselves by how much they carry. The leader proves themselves by how much they get done.
I read a great quote recently, source unknown: ”Leaders don’t rise by doing more. They rise by building others.”
You don’t achieve your dreams by doing everything yourself. You do it by letting go. Intentionally, thoughtfully, with trust and structure and patience.
The three levels of letting go are how you go from stuck to scalable, from stretched thin to strategic.
The biggest mindset shift might be realizing that letting go doesn’t mean losing control. It means creating space for others to rise.
Try it:
1. Pick one task you’re still white-knuckling—something that drains your energy but could grow someone else.
2. Decide the level: Is this a handoff, a true delegation or an elevation into new territory?
3. Set the outcome, not the script. Don’t give instructions; give direction, and let them go do.
4. Circle back. Debrief together. What did they learn? What surprised you? What’s the next level you can give away?
Let it go, and watch what happens.
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