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Stepping away from your business might just be the best thing you ever do for your business.
You might be surprised at what you find out about your team and what that break can do for your company. This can look like time away for vacation, personal development or even parental leave.
As a business owner, it can be nerve-racking to step away but start small. Take a short break, then work your way up to longer ones as you build trust and confidence with your teams.
Stepping away might seem counterintuitive if you’re deeply invested in your business’s success, but taking that space can be the most beneficial thing you can do to drive your organization forward.
It can give an important look into the strength of your systems and operations, a fresh perspective on your company, and it forces you to delegate.
Here’s what I’ve learned firsthand:
1. Visibility into systems and operations
When I first started stepping back from daily operations at Wistia, I was unnerved. I was anxious about missing key hires, not being in the loop on 1-on-1s and losing touch with the smaller details and decisions of the business.
But then I also realized that if your company relies on you to manage everything daily, it might be a sign that you need to rethink your organization’s systems and structures.
The key is building a strong team and structure that runs smoothly without you so that you can focus on the bigger picture. If you step away and quickly find that things aren’t operating as they should, that often indicates that you need to change your management approach.
If that’s the case, work with your teams to better prepare them for success by empowering them with the right tools, systems and guidance. Often, you need space and perspective to come to that realization.
Related: Why Every Entrepreneur Needs an Exit Strategy — and How to Create One
2. An outside perspective
When you’re too close to something, sometimes you miss the obvious. We’ve all been guilty of this.
The same applies to when you’re running a business. It’s easy to spot opportunities and critique other organizations from the outside. But sometimes it’s harder to see the same for your own company.
Because when you’re inside your business, you understand why things are the way they are. You know about that messy organizational structure, that product in development (or the one that failed) or all the complexity that’s holding you back.
But your customers don’t care about this. They don’t care why something’s broken or unavailable — or what the backstory is. They just want it fixed, or they want it to be better.
When you separate yourself from all that internal complexity by taking time away, it becomes easier to spot those opportunities and start seeing your business the way a customer would. And you can see how you show up in the market vs. your competitors. From there, you can pivot as needed.
3. The power of delegation
If you can’t delegate, you can’t scale. And trust is one of the biggest drivers of this.
Empowering your team to make decisions and take ownership, especially when you’re not there, transforms your whole organization. Taking a break isn’t just for you; it’s a chance for your team to step up, grow and solve hard problems with a fresh perspective.
It’s a powerful signal to your team: “I know you’ve got this. I trust you.” It’s the kind of recognition every employee wants – and it pushes them to step up and deliver.
At Wistia, the moment I let go and trusted others to take on some of my tasks, everything changed. Delegating helped free up my time and energy to focus on what really mattered — where I could make the biggest impact and add the most value. It’s simple: when you step back, you stop getting stuck in the business and start working on it. Shifting your perspective isn’t easy, but the payoff is always worth it.
A natural result of this is that you start thinking more long-term. As you give yourself more space, you’ll find that the more time you have for big-picture thinking, the easier it gets to make those tough, short-term decisions.
Related: How to Delegate as a Business Owner
So, at the end of the day, if you’re asking yourself if you can step away, I ask you to consider: “What’s truly the worst that could happen?”
Once you manage to overcome your separation anxiety, I’m willing to bet you can’t afford not to take a break. You’ll soon realize that taking this time becomes critically important as you grow—for yourself and the company. It’s a form of investing in the future.
Lean into the discomfort now — I promise it’ll pay off in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.
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Chris Savage