(FORTUNE Small Business) – Recently I asked our director of sales to lead the search for two new customer service agents. It was hardly typical of me. As my staff knows, I have historically kept personnel decisions to myself. But lately I've tried to delegate more. So I met with the sales director, and we agreed he'd find someone well organized and not flustered by our fast pace. With our priorities set, I sent him on his way.

Six weeks later the sales director, who had met with about a half-dozen candidates, came back with two whom he wanted to offer jobs. He asked that I chat for a few minutes with each of them; afterward he would hand them offer letters. Not so fast, I told him; I actually wanted the final say. One of the candidates, a recent college grad, won me over. The other, a woman whose résumé listed at least four jobs in the past three years--a sign of instability in my book--left me cold. When I told the sales director he couldn't hire her, he became indignant. "Why ask me to lead and then not let me choose?" he asked. I think my intervention influenced his decision to take a job elsewhere.

Such are the perils of delegating. Obviously I should have told the sales director that I had no intention of becoming a rubber stamp. But even I didn't know at the start how passionately I would feel about holding onto veto power. My father, who started our family-owned plastic-bag-manufacturing company more than 40 years ago, clutched power so tightly that no decision--down to the carpet color--was made without his input. At first I thought that maybe my resistance resided in my genes.

But now I've concluded that delegating isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. During the past year I've handed off sales responsibilities to my brother and plant layout to our factory manager. Then there are some chores--hiring for key positions, huddling with our bankers--that I am not prepared to cede to anyone. Finally, some decisions I am only going to partially delegate--which gets harder for everybody when I am unclear about my role. My desire to have final say about the hiring of a customer service agent had nothing to do with how much I trusted our sales director--a message I clearly neglected to transmit. I simply believe that in a small organizations the CEO has to make the call over any hire where the consequences of failure are so dire.

I'm still trying to force responsibility into the ranks--mainly because I have no choice. Our company has tripled in size in the past three years, and sales have rocketed above $40 million this year. I'm learning to be more explicit about when I am fully delegating and when I want to reserve a role. The manager updating our personnel handbook knows that I must review the final draft. Our plant manager knows that his leeway in deciding expenditures ends at $10,000.

So after the customer service candidate I had chosen turned us down, I put out feelers and brought in my next preferred prospect for our managers to interview. They exercised some checks against my making a foolish hire. That's pretty limited delegation, I know, but it's an honest start.