One of the most difficult and critical lessons I’ve learned as a founder is the importance of real—as opposed to nominal—delegating. This means truly letting go, and trusting critical decisions made by members of your management team. It means resisting the temptation to second-guess. Effective delegating will be important for your success because it is one of the only ways that you can truly empower your team members or build a productive organization. One of the areas where real delegation becomes especially important is in hiring and firing.

The first time I recall struggling with effective delegating came two years into my role as CEO of a company. One of my managers had decided it was necessary to fire one of our sales professionals. This particular professional had been on board for about nine months and was performing quite poorly. His sales performance was only about ten percent of his quota, even after accounting for the normal four to six month “ramp up” period one might get in a new job.

My VP of Sales met with me one day and told me he wanted to fire the salesperson the next day . He was going to be in the salesperson’s city for a meeting. I told the VP that the firing decision was his, since this was his sales team.

The next day, I was at my desk and I saw a call come in from the sales person (the company was small enough at this point where I knew everyone’s cell phone number on sight). I knew what had happened – the VP of Sales had told the person to meet him in an hour and to bring his company laptop. The sales person knew what this meant. And he was probably calling me, as CEO, for reassurance. In that moment, instead of answering the phone and taking the call, I let it ring through to my voicemail. At the time, I justified this to myself by thinking that I did not want to undermine my VP of Sales, since this was his team as I had delegated this firing decision to him.

The truth is I just did not want to confront the difficult issue and hid behind voicemail. It was the wrong thing to do. While letting a call ring through to voicemail might not seem like a huge offense, it sat badly with me. So, after about a few minutes of brooding on the subject I took a deep breath called the sales person back. He was very upset .I could hear the anger in his voice. Of course, the sales person asked me the tough question: “Am I being fired?” I swallowed hard and responded: “The VP has recommended that we make a change, but I would encourage you to meet and discuss the issue– there may be some chance to work this out.” It was the truth and it felt right to be honest and direct, even if it was a tough message to deliver.

In the end, the VP still fired the sales person and I was told that the meeting was professional. I think I managed to delegate properly to my VP of Sales and at the same time treat the person being terminated with the respect he deserved by speaking to him directly. The lessons I learned from this, and which I carry with me still, are twofold:

First, as a founder you demonstrate confidence in yourself and respect for your managers when you let them perform the tasks that you have delegated to them.

On the other hand, when you are the founder or CEO of a company, your employees may sometimes bring personnel issues directly to you. When this happens, you need to treat each person with respect and professionalism, regardless of what task(s) you may have delegated to their managers.

In conclusion, your startup can benefit in two important ways if you apply these lessons and delegate more effectively:

One: You will prove, internally and externally, that you have a management team that can be trusted with important tasks. (Investors love to see this.)

Two: You will cultivate a team that trusts you as a leader.

Achieving either of these things, and especially both, greatly improves your odds of success.

Allan Leinwand is a venture partner with Panorama Capital and founder of Vyatta. Previosuly, Allan was a co-founder Proficient Networks, and the CTO of Digital Island.