Over the course of my career, I have had the opportunity to lead businesses and initiatives across marketing, operations, merchandising, facilities, real estate, corporate communications and other disciplines. One of the most valuable leadership experiences came during my time at Clark Retail Enterprises, where I had responsibility for multiple functional areas supporting an organization of approximately 1,400 convenience stores.  The numbers were staggering: 

• 400 million customer transactions annually
• $900-million in convenience products sold
• $50 million in CAPEX budgets.

Each division had its own priorities, people, budgets and challenges. Marketing was focused on customers, promotions and driving traffic. Merchandising was concerned with sales, margins and category performance. Facilities dealt with keeping stores operational and managing capital expenditures. Real estate was focused on locations, leases and longer-term opportunities. Corporate communications had an entirely different set of responsibilities.

The challenge was obvious: How do you lead multiple divisions without losing control—or becoming the person who slows everything down?

Earlier in my career, I probably would have tried to stay involved in everything.

When I was with Little Caesars, I learned a painful but important lesson about micromanagement. After being promoted from Marketing Manager to Regional Director, I was called out for being too involved in the activities of one of my managers. The message was simple: if I couldn’t learn to let other people do their jobs, I would never be able to take on greater responsibility.

That lesson became increasingly important as my career progressed.

The Leadership Problem

One of the biggest mistakes executives make when their responsibilities increase is continuing to manage the same way they did when they had a smaller organization.

You simply cannot do it.

If you oversee five divisions and try to operate as the department head for all five, eventually you become the bottleneck. Decisions wait for you. People stop taking initiative. Meetings multiply. Your calendar fills up, and instead of leading the organization, you spend your time reacting to it.

I learned that leadership doesn’t scale through personal involvement. It scales through people, systems, communication, metrics and accountability.

Here are several lessons I learned along the way.

1. Put Strong People Around You

You cannot effectively lead multiple divisions if you don’t trust the people running them.

Hire strong managers, clearly define their responsibilities and then give them the authority to do their jobs. If every significant decision still needs to come through you, you haven’t really delegated anything.

2. Establish a Management Rhythm

Managing multiple functions requires structure.  Weekly operating updates, regular leadership meetings, monthly financial reviews and quarterly strategic discussions create a predictable cadence.

The purpose isn’t to create more meetings. It is to eliminate the need for constant meetings because everyone knows when performance will be reviewed and what they are accountable for delivering.

3. Know the Numbers That Matter

Every division should have a handful of key performance indicators.  You don’t need 50 numbers to understand whether a department is performing. You need the right five or six.

Sales, margin, expenses, project completion, capital spending, customer metrics or whatever measures truly drive that function should provide an early warning when something is moving in the wrong direction.

4. Manage by Exception

This became one of the most important principles for me.  If something is performing according to plan, the manager should manage it. If something begins drifting from plan, we need to understand why. If something materially misses expectations, that’s when executive involvement may be necessary.

Think of it as green, yellow and red.

Green means keep going. Yellow means pay attention. Red means get involved.

5. Make Accountability Visible

Every important initiative needs an owner and a deadline.  One lesson reinforced repeatedly throughout my career is that projects rarely fail because nobody knew what needed to be done. They fail because ownership wasn’t clear or follow-up didn’t occur.

When managing multiple divisions, disciplined follow-up becomes critical.

6. Delegate—Don’t Abdicate

Delegation doesn’t mean handing something off and forgetting about it.  The leader still establishes expectations, provides resources, reviews performance, removes roadblocks and holds people accountable.

Delegation transfers responsibility for the work. It doesn’t transfer responsibility for the result.

7. Stay Close to the Business

There is also a danger in managing entirely through spreadsheets, reports and PowerPoint presentations.  My background in retail taught me the importance of getting into the stores, talking with employees, visiting projects, speaking with suppliers and seeing what customers actually experience.

Reports tell you what people think is happening. Getting into the business tells you what is actually happening.

8. Know When to Dive In—and When to Get Back Out

There are times when leaders need to get into the details.  Results deteriorate. A major project falls behind. Costs exceed expectations. Customer complaints increase. A manager repeatedly misses commitments.

Those situations require attention.  But once the problem is understood, corrective action is established and accountability is clear, the leader needs to step back again.

Otherwise, problem-solving quickly turns into micromanagement.

The Takeaway

As I moved through my career and took responsibility for increasingly larger and more complicated organizations, I realized that maintaining control doesn’t mean controlling every decision.

It means creating a management system that tells you where your attention is needed.

For today’s manager, that distinction is critical.  The higher you move in an organization, the less your success is determined by what you personally accomplish and the more it is determined by what you enable other people to accomplish.

That may be one of the hardest transitions in leadership.

It is also one of the most important.