Stop Waiting for Your Team to “Step Up” — Build the Space for It Instead

Tanya Hilts
Jul 3
3 min read

Lately, I’m hearing the same phrase in a lot of accounting and bookkeeping circles: “How do I get my team to step up?” And honestly… it makes total sense.

Time is tight. Good people are hard to find. And even when you do have a loyal, hardworking team, you can still feel like you’re the one carrying the mental load.

You’re still answering the tricky client emails. You’re still fixing the “almost right” work. You’re still the one who has to make the final call on everything. You look at your calendar and think, “If I could just hand off 20% of this, I could finally breathe.”

But delegating isn’t just about assigning tasks. It’s about creating the conditions where someone else can actually take ownership.

Because the role of team members in firms has changed.

So much of the traditional number-crunching and admin work has been automated or digitized. What’s left (and what’s growing) is client management, process improvement, and service delivery. That’s where firms need their people to lean in.

And yet, owners and directors keep running into the same barriers:

Confidence
Capacity
Skills
And sometimes… a culture that quietly says, “Don’t mess this up.”

If you want your team to step up, here are four stages that make it actually happen.

1) Create the space (yes, that means you move first)

If there’s nowhere for your team to step into, they won’t step.

This is the part that’s uncomfortable: stepping up requires space, and space usually means you stop doing things that keep you in control.

If you’re:

micro-managing every file
rewriting their client messages
shutting down ideas because they’re not “your way”
correcting everything before they’ve had a chance to learn

…then there’s no room ahead of them. There’s only you.

Your team is not you. They grew up in a different world, trained differently, and will solve problems differently. That’s not a threat — it’s progress.

Trying to build a team of “mini-me’s” (even subconsciously) will stall your firm. People can’t grow if they’re constantly trying to guess what you would’ve done.

And I’ll say this with love: if you don’t trust someone to do the role, don’t hire them.

2) Build the foundation (clarity creates confidence)

Even if you leave space, your team won’t automatically walk into it.

They need to feel two things:

This is mine to own.
I can do this.

That starts with clear roles and responsibilities that everyone understands — not just what’s in your head.

When expectations are transparent, people make better decisions. When they know what “good” looks like, they stop hesitating.

Don’t wait for your team to knock on the door.

Invite them in. Show them the floor plan. Put their name on the desk.

3) Encourage the growth (remove the fear factor)

In my experience, the biggest blocker to stepping up is confidence.

And confidence doesn’t grow in a culture where mistakes are punished.

To help people cross that threshold, you need two ingredients:

A culture where mistakes are part of learning — not a disciplinary event
Visible training and support so people feel backed up, not set up

Quality control matters, of course. But if “quality control” means no one can try anything without you, then you’ve built a firm that depends on you.

Training, coaching, mentoring, and management support should create an environment where people can experiment, think independently, and take action — without fear sitting on their shoulder.

We’ve all learned from mistakes. Just don’t repeat the same ones too often.

4) Firm up the structure (autonomy is the goal)

If you’ve created space, clarified roles, and built support… you’ll start to see people take more ownership.

But to truly free yourself up, the next step is autonomy.

A strong team doesn’t just rely less on you — they start supporting each other.

That looks like: