How much authority do the people that serve your clients and customers have?  In my experience, delegating the greatest amount of responsibility to the customer-facing members of a team is one of the most effective things I can do.  

Empowering team members with the information, authority and confidence to deal with as many situations as possible creates the following:

  1. Better service for your customers through faster decision making                 (Team members should never have to tell a customer that “I’ll have to check”).
  2. Happier, more independent team members who can get on with doing their job: serving customers
  3. More time and head space for the leaders to focus on growing the business

Consider the questions that people in your team ask you everyday. Could you empower them to deal with more of these situations on their own?  I think so.

If you really trust your team, start showing it by letting them make decisions for themselves.  They’ll love it and so will your customers.