The Delegator Stage

The third stage of the operations leader’s career arc, corresponding to the $60M–$100M company stage, in which the primary mandate shifts from building systems to building the management layer capable of running those systems independently.

The delegator’s success is measured not by personal output but by the quality of decisions made by the team they have developed. If the VP of Operations is still the single point of operational authority for routine decisions, the Delegator stage has not been achieved.

The most common failure mode is premature delegation to an underprepared management layer, which produces operational breakdowns that pull the COO back into execution and stall the entire transition.