Please forward this to a high-impact leader who needs the energy edge. If this was forwarded to you, get plugged in here.

⚡ QUICK SPIN:

Control feels like confidence.

But for high-performers?

It’s often the root of energy depletion.

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Let me explain:

You’re trying to manage everything: decisions, outcomes, people, the calendar, your personal energy, and everyone else’s moods while you’re at it.

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But energy isn’t optimized by controlling—it’s scaled by designing for autonomy.

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And no, autonomy ≠ isolation.

That’s where most leaders get it wrong.

🛠️ MY TURN:

A founder client said to me this week:

“I feel like I’m the bottleneck for every decision… but I also don’t trust anyone else to get it right.”

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Boom. Classic control fatigue.

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So we reframed:

What would it look like to design autonomy into your system, not just your schedule?

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We mapped their:

• Key decisions by impact
• Current energy leaks (meetings, misalignments, overcommunication)
• Dependency grid (Who needs you vs. who thinks they do?)

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The aha moment:

It wasn’t the volume of decisions—it was the ownership vacuum.

They hadn’t built strategic autonomy, just task delegation.

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🧠 THE DATA BACKUP:

• Leaders who actively foster autonomy see a 31% increase in team energy and a 25% improvement in decision velocity (Gartner, 2023)
• Cognitive overload spikes when leaders switch contexts more than 20x/day (McKinsey)
• Research from Stanford: “Psychological ownership” outperforms micromanagement for scaling teams and sustainable energy.

Translation?

If your people don’t own it, you will. That’s the energy tax.

🛠️ SYSTEM: DESIGN FOR STRATEGIC AUTONOMY:

1. The 80% Rule:

If someone can own the task 80% as well as you, let them.

Your job is to coach ownership, not hoard control.

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2. Daily Autonomy Audit:

Ask yourself:

• What did I do today that someone else should own?
• What decisions could’ve been made without me, if the structure allowed?
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3. Default to “Outcome” Not “How”:

Stop assigning steps. Start assigning success definitions.

🤗 YOUR TURN:

• Where are you the unnecessary decision point?
• What would your business feel like if autonomy didn’t feel like a risk?

Drop an email my way. Or forward this to a founder friend running on fumes from doing it all.

👊 LET'S TALK:

I help high-performing leaders design autonomy that scales with energy, not against it.

No fluff. Just systems that win.

👉 www.adamwbarney.com​

Cheers, Adam

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🎙 P.S.S. New episode of my podcast is live: Is Anything Real in Paid Advertising?​