Leadership & Delegation: The Nuclear Submarine Example

I once heard a story about an admiral who made a radical decision: he delegated every single decision on his nuclear submarine except one — firing a nuclear weapon.

That meant the crew officers, specialists, even junior leaders, were empowered to act. They didn’t need to run every choice up the chain. They didn’t wait for permission. The only line the admiral kept for himself was the decision with global consequences.

That’s leadership.

Why Delegation Works (and Why It’s Hard)

The principle is simple: the people closest to the problem are usually the best equipped to solve it.

But here’s the catch…most organizations (and most founders) struggle with letting go. Why?

• Control: We believe if we touch every decision, things won’t break.

• Trust: We don’t fully believe someone else will get it “right.”

• Identity: As leaders, our egos are tied to being the one with the answers.

I’ve seen this dynamic in businesses of every size. And it doesn’t just slow things down — it suffocates growth.

From Nuclear Subs to Auto Shops

My co-host Demaris recently shared a story about her brother-in-law’s auto shop. He’s talented, hardworking, and cares deeply about quality. But he struggles to delegate. If a mechanic doesn’t torque a bolt exactly how he would, he re-does the work himself.

The result? Burnout for him, frustration for his team, and a ceiling on the business.

The lesson: it’s not about the scale of the organization — whether you’re running a nuclear submarine, a tech startup, or a local shop, the psychology of leadership is the same. Delegation is not just a process issue; it’s an ego issue.

Great Leaders Let Go

What separates high-performing organizations from average ones isn’t perfection from the top, it’s distributed leadership.

• The Navy learned this a long time ago.

• The best companies practice it daily.

• Small businesses that embrace it break through plateaus.

As a leader, your job isn’t to make every decision. Your job is to build trust, set clarity, and create space for others to lead.

Because here’s the truth: if you’re the bottleneck, your business can only grow as big as your capacity.

But when you delegate — when you push authority down — you multiply yourself. You build a team that’s capable, confident, and ready to solve problems without waiting on you.

And that’s how you go from being the hardest worker in the room… to being the leader your organization actually needs.