Building More: Symphony of Delegation

Words: Corey Adams

It’s 6:42 a.m., the sky’s turning that pale gray that makes extension cords disappear, and you could picture yourself rolling onto a subdivision where the first thing you hear isn’t the boom lift, but a superintendent we’ll call Ivan. He’s looking up the scaffold, prints in hand, spewing what sounds like instructions, but the reality is he is dictating every step to be made. Every command lands like a hammer on an empty drum. The crew presses forward, but no one’s actually thinking; they’re just executing instructions one decibel at a time.

Now flip the mental channel to a different scene. Four teenage brothers are huddled in a driveway on a Saturday morning with a simple mission: whip the yard into shape before lunch. The oldest glances at the master list—mow, edge, bag, sweep—then deals out work like a point guard: “I’ll mow; you two trim and bag; little man, you’re on driveway cleanup. The two-hour clock starts now. If you finish early, slide to whoever still needs help.” No barking, no hovering, no stopwatch in anyone’s face. Two hours later that lawn looks like Augusta on a Sunday afternoon.

Both scenes are hypothetical, but the leadership contrast is painfully real on every jobsite I visit. Why does the first crew slog while the second hums? One leader dictates; the other delegates.

Ask yourself a few questions. Do you spell out every single cut, measurement, and screw pattern because it “guarantees quality”? Do you circle back ten minutes later to make sure your order was followed to the letter? More important—are you the bottleneck every time something new pops up? If your crew can’t pivot without your blessing, you might be ruling like a 16th-century czar, waving edicts that choke the oxygen out of team initiative.

Dictatorship on site feels efficient. After all, if you say exactly what to do, production should fly, right? Not really. Micromanagement turns tradespeople into puppets. They stop owning outcomes and start waiting for commands. And when everything funnels through one mind, a single mis-cut sheet of drywall stalls progress while Ivan sorts the next set of instructions.

Delegation looks slower from the outside—until you crunch numbers. Track two comparable tilt-wall jobs. On Project A, the superintendent runs a dictate-and-verify show. Forty punch items pop up per ten-thousand square feet. On Project B, the lead sets clear boundaries, then trusts the crew to execute; punch items land under twenty. The difference isn’t magic: a crew that owns the process spots and fixes half its own hiccups before they harden into punch tickets.

Still skeptical? Pull last month’s time cards. How often did you field “What do I do now?” calls? Every ten minutes? Every hour? Each call is silent proof your system breeds dependence. The more you answer, the more you’ll have to answer.

So how does a recovering czar hand off the scepter without tanking quality? Start with three guardrails your team can see and measure:

Define the finish line. Not every step of the way, but a clear outcome that allows the crew to flow through the project. Be careful that production isn’t your only outcome.
Equip for the journey. Lasers, layout drawings, a stocked gang box—whatever prevents the “I can’t do it because…” excuse.
Set a check-in window, not a leash. “I’ll swing back at 10 a.m. to review progress.” That gives space to work and a deadline that encourages pacing. I prefer weekly check-ins when crews are doing well, more often if they need a push or training.

You’ll feel the urge to hover. Fight it. Delegate one full task on Friday—say, staging Monday’s material drop—and leave it alone. Meet the crew Monday at 6:45 a.m. and see how they did. If you spot a wobble, debrief with questions, not blame. “What held us up? How do we fix that next time?” Provide the missing resource, then run the drill again.

Yes, delegation takes longer up front. You have to teach, document, and trust. The latter is one of the hardest things to do as a small business owner. We trust people with high level things every day and our skilled tradespeople deserve at least that much respect. Don’t believe me? Do you trust that the semi in the other lane is going to miss your truck?

Delegation also pumps life into safety and innovation. When workers feel trusted, they speak up about wobbly guardrails before OSHA shows, and they tinker with faster layout tricks on their own dime. That’s upside no dictator ever uncorked.

Now, am I saying leaders should vanish into the trailer and binge spreadsheets? Hardly. A good delegator is a resource—the base plate of the scaffold, not the hand on every brace. Your job is to stabilize, supply, and spot big-picture plumb. Early check-in: “Need a man lift? Want longer anchor bolts? Tell me now.” Late check-in: “Any bottlenecks I can bust before tomorrow?” One curiosity-driven question is worth ten screamed corrections.

Make no mistake: fear fuels most micromanagement. Fear of missed schedules, angry generals, slimmer bids, or—let’s be honest—fear of looking foolish if the crew’s call doesn’t match your own. The antidote isn’t bravado; it’s data. Measure what matters—hours per unit, punch items per square foot—and let those numbers prove delegation’s worth. When the curve bends the right way, your jitters fade.

I want you to try something. Pick one trusted foreman and hand them the Friday game plan. Materials, manpower, sequence. Review at noon Thursday, then keep your distance. When Friday dust settles, audit the results. Did the plan stick? Where did it wobble? Did your phone ring constantly with questions? It may teach you quite a bit about your processes, and the foreman.

Here’s the payoff: people grow when pressed with responsibility. Companies grow when twelve brains solve problems instead of one. Give your team the option to grow, give them responsibility.

How will your jobsite sound tomorrow? Does it hum like that hypothetical mower brigade—each worker clear on the what and free to figure out the how—or is it chaotic noise like Ivan’s wall with every move chained to a single voice? If it’s the latter, swap the scepter for a stopwatch and a listening ear. Dictate less. Delegate more. You might be surprised at how fast the music picks up once you stop conducting every note.

Building More: Symphony of Delegation

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