As a Founder, can you grow a successful and industry-dominating business with just one direct report?

After meeting with one particular Founder last week, I’m here to say you can, and maybe it’s actually the foolproof recipe to success – if that one person is the ‘right’ person.

To provide some context, this Founder is a ‘heavyweight’ in the world of business. Ex C-Suite at a variety of global names, founder of several impressive companies and someone who knows how to scale fast and with impact. (On top of that, they’re also a great human, one who I could tell is never, ever satisfied with the status quo.)

Yet, despite everything they have on their plate, from new business acquisitions to supplier meetings (how we met) to developing potential partnership opportunities, they are not trying to control it all.

Instead, they have one person running that business engine room whom they trust implicitly. No tangled web of 6 direct reports and another 12 dotted-lines.

This made the cogs in my brain start turning…

Is this what true delegation looks like when you’re fuelled by real ambition?
Does success in high-growth businesses require letting go of more – not less?

As a business owner, not being across every decision must be hard (especially when you see that brand as an extension of you).

But maybe that’s the point.

Maybe the real secret isn’t doing it all, it’s building a structure where you don’t actually don’t have to.

Where your focus and energy goes to strategy, vision and growth – you create the networks, you create the opportunities and you have a trusted operator handling the rest at HQ.

I could also mention another business owner I know in the world of recruitment. He used to manage a team of recruiters, but where his talents really lie is in business development. He’s recently brought in an operations manager to oversee the team and business management, and as a company, they’ve never been more profitable. Why? Because the owner is now focused on what he does best… and it’s not managing a team.

If you’re a Founder or business owner, how many direct reports do you have right now?

And is it working for you?