Everyone has one. Every company and every person has one in their life, and everyone needs them. That’s why they’re the linchpin. Most people are afraid of having a linchpin, of putting control into another individual.
However, without linchpins, your company is nothing more than a factory of disgruntled people spitting out the same product again and again and again. Giving someone control, giving them responsibility allows them to do their best work, to please the client every time, to go above and beyond the requirements every time.
If you don’t allow them to do this, then you’ll end up with a bunch of “punch-in, punch-out” employees. And those employees will never do more than push buttons all day, because it’s all their allowed to do.
If you’re curious on the topic, Seth Godin has an amazing book titled Linchpin that makes the best case for this phenomenon we’ve ever read.