Meaning ● Distributed Authority, in the context of SMB growth, automation, and implementation, signifies a deliberate decentralization of decision-making power. This model empowers employees across various departments within an SMB to make informed decisions relevant to their specific roles and areas of expertise, diverging from traditional hierarchical structures. Automation initiatives particularly benefit from distributed authority, as frontline staff often possess the most acute understanding of process inefficiencies and opportunities for technological enhancement. ● Such an approach allows SMBs to react faster to market changes and customer needs, stimulating business expansion by boosting employee engagement and innovation. As SMBs adopt automation, distributed authority can enable quicker implementation of automated workflows and systems, tailoring them to departmental needs, and improving business agility. Implementing this requires defining clear roles and responsibilities, providing robust training, and establishing accountability frameworks to maintain alignment with overarching business goals. ● Implementing this in SMBs can speed up problem solving, encourage creativity, and make the business more flexible to adjust to new problems and possibilities, ultimately leading to more business growth. Automation works well with this method since employees can more easily find and fix issues themselves using the technology available, driving business improvement and more business profit.