Delegation: How to Build a Team You Can Trust

In 2014, Theranos was a $9 billion unicorn hailed as the future of blood testing. Four years later, the company was dissolved, and in 2022, founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.

The story of Theranos is a modern tragedy of ambition gone wrong, and at its core was a catastrophic failure of delegation. Holmes, along with her partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, created a culture of extreme secrecy, intimidation, and micromanagement. Instead of empowering the brilliant scientists and engineers they hired, they controlled every aspect of the company with an iron fist.

Employees were actively discouraged from communicating with one another about their work, creating silos that prevented anyone from seeing the full picture of the company’s failing technology. Those who raised questions or voiced concerns about the faulty blood-testing devices were systematically bullied, marginalized, or fired.

Holmes and Balwani made all key decisions, often without the necessary scientific expertise, and surrounded themselves with a high-profile board that lacked the technical background to challenge them. This absolute refusal to delegate trust or authority meant that critical problems weren’t just missed—they were deliberately hidden.

The result was a company built on deception that ultimately collapsed, endangering patients and defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars.

What Delegation Really Means

Delegation in the 7 D’s Business Alignment Framework isn’t just about offloading tasks. It’s about aligning your people and roles for maximum strength and freedom. It encompasses empowering your team, clarifying responsibilities, and developing leaders at every level.

In an aligned organization, each person operates in their “zone of genius” rather than the leader trying to do everything.

Delegation is fundamentally about trust. It answers questions like:

• Do you trust your team to handle key parts of the business?
• Have you given them the tools and authority to do so?

When delegation is aligned, the business owner and managers focus on what only they can do (vision, high-level strategy) and delegate other important functions to capable hands. The team feels ownership and accountability.

Every Dimension of a Business Must Work in Harmony

The catastrophic failure of delegation at Theranos was enabled by misalignment in every other dimension. The company’s DNA was rooted in deception, not integrity. Its Design was built on secrecy and silos, not collaboration. Decisions were centralized and driven by fear, not expertise.

The constant manipulation of Data to hide the technology’s failures was a core part of the fraud.

This toxic environment destroyed any possibility of Delight for employees and endangered customers. Ultimately, this systemic refusal to delegate or trust anyone sealed the company’s Destiny as one of Silicon Valley’s most infamous collapses.

Symptoms of Delegation Misalignment

• Decisions bottleneck at one person. If every choice waits for your approval, you’re under-delegating. Theranos became a case study in this: teams stalled until Holmes or Balwani weighed in, creating chronic drag and hiding problems longer.

• Overworked leader, underutilized team. You’re burning the midnight oil while capable people are stuck on low-leverage tasks. Theranos’ culture concentrated authority at the top, wasting the expertise of world-class hires.

• “I can’t trust anyone with the big stuff.” That feeling usually signals weak systems, not weak people. Theranos amplified this by secrecy and intimidation, which erodes trust and makes meaningful delegation impossible.

• Hero syndrome. You jump in to fix things instead of coaching. It’s faster today, but your team never builds the judgment to own tomorrow.

• Low initiative and morale. When people aren’t empowered, they disengage and default to “just tell me what to do.”

• Chaos when you step back. If a long weekend triggers a flood of pings, roles, authorities, and backups aren’t clear.

• No real vacations. If you can’t be offline without the business stalling, you’re not delegating outcomes—only tasks.

• The team isn’t growing. People aren’t acquiring new skills or taking on bigger bets because they’re never given the chance. As Theranos showed, stunted development plus centralized power equals brittle execution.

Sustainable companies distribute decision rights, information, and accountability. When power concentrates at the top, delegation misalignment becomes inevitable, and risks compound.

The Consequences of Poor Delegation

The founder who cannot delegate has not built a business. They have built a high-stress job for themselves. Micromanagement disempowers the team, stifles innovation, and creates a culture of dependency. It is a direct path to founder burnout, as the leader’s workload becomes impossibly large.

In the case of Theranos, it created a culture of fear that enabled massive fraud. Ultimately, the company’s growth will hit a ceiling when it reaches your personal capacity to do the work.

The Theranos case shows the most extreme consequences, but whenever employees are not empowered to speak up or make decisions, a company loses its internal checks and balances. Problems are hidden instead of solved, and the organization becomes blind to its own fatal flaws.

How to Align Delegation (Practical Steps)

1. Clarify Roles and Expectations. It starts with making sure every team member knows what they are the “CEO” of. Even a junior staffer can be given full ownership of a certain realm.
2. Delegate Outcomes, Not Tasks. Instead of saying “do X, Y, Z exactly this way,” describe the desired outcome and give the person latitude to achieve it. This empowers them to think and own the result, not just follow instructions.
3. Create a Safety Net for Decisions. One reason leaders hesitate to delegate is fear of mistakes. Mitigate this by setting boundaries: “You have the authority to resolve any customer issue up to a $500 value without asking me.” This gives employees freedom within guardrails.
4. Mentor and Train. Delegation isn’t abdication. When you hand something off, ensure the person has the know-how to do it or can learn it. Invest a bit of time in training or side-by-side practice.
5. Let Go of Perfection. Recognize that others might do things differently than you—and that’s okay. As long as it meets the necessary standard and achieves the goal, that’s a win. Constantly re-doing your team’s work undermines the whole point of delegation.

Two Examples of Doing it Right

Richard Branson’s Second Father

When Sir Richard Branson reflects on the secret to his success, he doesn’t point to a single brilliant idea or a shrewd business deal.

Instead, he tells the story of Jack Clayden, Virgin’s first accountant. In the early days of his mail-order record business, Branson, who is dyslexic, knew he was “never any good with numbers.” Rather than pretend or struggle, he made a pivotal decision: he delegated.

He hired Jack, a man he would later call a “second father in my business life,” stating unequivocally, “It is not an exaggeration to say that we would never have got off the ground without you.”

This single, early act of delegation became the foundational principle of the entire Virgin empire. Branson realized that to grow, he had to identify his weaknesses and “get out and find other people who could perform and run things better than I could.”

This philosophy allowed him to step away from the day-to-day minutiae and focus on the big picture. For Branson, delegation is the strategic engine that enabled Virgin to expand from a single record shop into a global conglomerate with over 60 companies in dozens of industries.

His story is a masterclass in how letting go is the key to building something truly massive.

Steve Jobs’ Spiritual Partner

When Steve Jobs returned to a nearly bankrupt Apple in 1997, he didn’t try to do everything himself. He radically simplified the company’s product line and structure. Crucially, he identified and empowered a small circle of trusted leaders, including Jony Ive (who Jobs called his “spiritual partner”) in design and Tim Cook in operations.

Jobs set an incredibly high bar for excellence (the DNA) and then gave them the autonomy and authority to meet it.

By delegating massive areas of responsibility, he was able to focus his own energy on the vision and strategy where he could add the most value. This is the essence of aligned delegation. It’s not about abdicating responsibility but about multiplying leadership capacity.

Quick Wins to Foster Better Delegation

1. The Delegation List. Write down two tasks you’re doing now that you suspect someone else on your team could do 80% as well (or better). Next to each, write the name of a team member who could potentially take it on. In the next week, hand off those tasks. Be clear in your instructions, and also clear that you trust them.
2. Empowerment Script for Employees. Often employees are hesitant to take initiative because they’re not sure if it’s their place. You can change that by explicitly giving permission. Try saying something like in your next meeting: “I want everyone to know that you don’t need to wait for my okay on [routine decisions]. I trust your judgment.” This kind of language empowers team members.
3. The “One Thing” Challenge. Identify one task you do regularly that could be handled by someone else on your team. This week, document the process and hand it off completely. Start small to build the muscle.
4. Ask, Don’t Tell. The next time a team member comes to you with a problem, resist the urge to give them the answer. Instead, ask, “What do you think we should do?” This simple shift in language begins the process of coaching them to solve their own problems.

Aligning delegation is liberating. Not only for you as a leader, but for your team who will thrive with trust and responsibility. It transforms the business from a heavy backpack you’re carrying alone into a caravan where everyone’s carrying something according to their strengths.