I keep having the same conversation with different founders:
This piece was originally shared on LinkedIn in response to recurring conversations with founders and leadership teams around this topic.
I’m publishing it here as part of an ongoing body of thinking around restaurant strategy, market entry, and operational decision-making.
'We've grown, we've hired good people, but I'm still the bottleneck.'
They are asking the same question in different ways:
- Why they're still signing off invoices.
- Why senior hires keep escalating decisions upward.
- Why stepping back feels riskier now than ever.
In most cases, it isn't about trust or capability, it comes down to the sequence.
When you hire people at the point of pressure, the role often hasn’t been properly defined. Meaning your new talent is unclear about accountability, which leads to hesitation, confusion and delays.
On paper, the business looks bigger. In practice, it still relies on the same person to maintain standards.
What needs to happen first:
- Define where decisions are getting stuck and why they're landing back with you.
- Work out what controls would give you visibility before things slip.
- Map the role and its accountability before putting someone in it.
This element matters because bringing in a senior hire without clarity around their role just adds another layer, rather than removing workload from the leader.
When implemented properly, the dynamic shifts.
The structure builds strength, you can step back without losing oversight, and the business stops running through one person.
Since first sharing this, I’ve seen the same issue surface repeatedly — particularly with businesses entering new markets or scaling too quickly. The underlying challenge is rarely strategy itself, but how early decisions constrain execution later.