If the President Stays on the Front Lines, the Company Stops with the Second Generation: The Trap of the 47.5% of Presidents Who Do Everything Themselves and the Order of Letting Go

When I talk to construction business owners, so many of them laugh and say, 'I'm so busy that I have to do my paperwork at night.'

They give instructions to craftsmen on-site from the morning, write up estimates during the day, call partner companies in the evening, and handle invoices and labor ledgers at night. Before they know it, it's 10:00 PM.

This was exactly me when I was working in housing sales. I was convinced that 'if I don't do it myself, nothing will get done,' so I would arrive at the office earlier than anyone else and leave later than anyone else.

However, I recently came across some data that made me stop in my tracks. A survey of 200 small and medium-sized enterprise presidents showed that about 47.5% of them are still involved in hands-on work (playing business). The results indicated that 40% of those presidents spend more than 30% of their working hours on such tasks (Source: Nikkei Business, 'How Presidents Should Let Go of Work,' 200-person survey).

'It's Faster If I Do It Myself' Stops the Company

'It's faster if I do it myself.' I have heard this phrase many times from second-generation presidents of small and medium-sized enterprises and presidents who started their companies after working as craftsmen.

And it is true. During the startup phase or immediately after a business succession, if the president takes action, sales are guaranteed. It is faster for the president to go to the site themselves than to spend time teaching a new employee. So, they go to the site. This is a rational decision.

But what happens if you continue that 'rational decision' for five or ten years? The 2025 White Paper on Small and Medium Enterprises by the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency clearly states that what is important in the acceleration phase of growth is 'securing complementary talent with skills the manager lacks' and 'overcoming the one-man management system' (Source: 2025 White Paper on Small and Medium Enterprises, Part 1).

In other words, from a certain point on, 'the president standing on the front lines' becomes a shackle that stops the company's growth.

I personally think this structure is particularly serious in the construction industry. The ratio of sole proprietors to all skilled workers in the construction industry is 15.6%, estimated at approximately 510,000 people (Source: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Materials from the Study Group on the Problem of Sole Proprietors in the Construction Industry). There are overwhelmingly more cases where the president themselves is out on the site as a sole proprietor compared to other industries.

And construction management involves a mountain of paperwork in addition to on-site work, such as 'estimates, cost management, labor ledgers, safety documents, partner company management, and invoice issuance.'

The President Reaches Their 60s Without Having Handed Anything Over to Anyone

Here is another scary piece of data.

According to a 2025 survey by Teikoku Databank, the nationwide rate of companies without a successor is 50.1%. In other words, in half of all companies, it has not been decided who will take over (Source: Teikoku Databank, 2025 Nationwide Survey on 'Successor Absence Rate' Trends).

Although the absence rate has been improving for seven consecutive years, it is still one in two companies. Furthermore, it is pointed out that many managers are carrying the burden of business succession alone without anyone to consult with.

What I want to ask here is whether the fact that 'the state of being able to hand over one's own work has not been reached' is just as serious as 'a successor not being decided.'

For example, imagine a second-generation president of a construction firm. In the company inherited from their father, they work as a site supervisor, while estimates are left to a long-serving office worker. Accounting is handled by a tax accountant, labor by a labor and social security attorney, and the site by craftsmen and the master carpenter.

At first glance, it looks like it's running smoothly.

However, if the office worker gets sick or a veteran craftsman retires, at that very moment, a chain reaction of 'Wait, who was doing that?' occurs. As the president themselves handles the site, accounting, and partner company management all at once, the 'overall picture of the company's work' as seen from the outside becomes blurred.

This is the true nature of 'the day the company suddenly stops' that I have seen many times in business negotiation settings.

There is a golden rule for the order of delegation.

Construction company executives who have read this far are probably thinking, "So, what should I do?"

What I want to propose now is not to get the "order of delegation" wrong.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with someone who launched AI training for executives after retiring from a major manufacturer. They said, "AI training is like watching Shohei Ohtani hit a home run; you won't be able to hit one yourself just by watching. You have to actually run it on the student's computer for it to sink in." I was struck by how true that is.

In other words, it means you need to "write down all your tasks before introducing convenient tools."

The "order of delegation" that I currently recommend to construction company presidents consists of the following four steps.

1. Write down tasks: Write down everything you do in a week. 30-minute increments are fine.

2. Check for individual dependency: Count how many tasks have "procedures only you know."

3. Sort for outsourcing/automation: Outsource paperwork (invoices, labor ledgers, safety documents) and keep judgment-based tasks (estimates, on-site responses) for yourself.

4. Select partners: Fill in the pieces with accounting firms, labor and social security attorneys, AI tools, administrative assistants, etc.

There are so many executives who skip step 1, "writing down tasks," and go straight to 3 or 4. Introducing AI tools that don't get used or installing business management apps only to revert to paper are exactly the results of skipping step 1.

And this is for the same reason that handing an app to a new employee and saying, "Start reporting with this tomorrow" doesn't work. If "what to hand over, to whom, and when" is not verbalized, tools are powerless.

Summary: Keep the on-site intuition, but hand over only the paperwork.

I do not believe that a president staying on the front lines is a bad thing at all. My own 12 and a half years as a housing sales representative at Sumitomo Forestry, facing customers on-site, form the foundation of my current work.

However, I believe that if you can hand over even half of your paperwork while keeping that on-site intuition, your company will definitely change.

At ShakeHands, we conduct a 60-minute free consultation called "Warifuru" for presidents of small and medium-sized enterprises, primarily in the construction industry. It is a simple process where we write down the tasks in the president's head together and provide a first draft of a task breakdown sheet.

As of 2026, it is still in pilot operation, and we are in the stage of recruiting monitoring partners. Because it is not a finished product, I hope to refine it together while listening to the realities of the field.

I would be happy if this could be the first step for presidents who keep thinking, "If I don't do it, it won't run," to start writing down their tasks.

ShakeHands LLC
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