When it comes to delegation, does this sound like you? “It’s easier if I just do it myself ” or “I don’t have time to explain this to someone else.” Maybe, you feel like no one else can do “it” as well as you will. No shame – leaders at all levels wrestle with delegating.
Delegating well is one of a handful of topics that comes up consistently with my coaching clients. There are a few different starting points: Succession planning, developing high potentials, and (most often) being frustrated by direct reports who aren’t “thinking organizationally” and come to their leader for everything, keeping them entrenched in execution.
“They just don’t get it,” I hear a lot. Meanwhile, there hasn’t been much intentional focus on helping them learn. Osmosis is rarely effective when what is needed is capacity and development.
Leaders, delegating is one element of your role that, when you invest the time in doing it well, pays off exponentially. The best leaders look for opportunities to delegate because they know how powerful it can be in developing up and coming leaders AND in multiplying their own capacity.
So, if delegating well is such a great deal, where does the resistance come from?
Common Obstacles to Effective Delegation
There are a few arguments against it I hear fairly regularly. But inevitably, clients end up making their case FOR delegating as they work through their reasons against it.
Here are the main three. See if they ring familiar to you:
- “It takes too long to train someone on this.”
Yes, delegating effectively requires an investment of your time. But how often must you handle that task in a week, month, or year? How much time will you get back when the task is off your plate — not just today, but into the future? This isn’t just about one-time task relief; it’s about accountability transfer.
- “It’s easier if I do it myself.”
For you, maybe– but what about your team members? This short-term thinking keeps you in a long-term trap. If you’re overloaded with execution work, chances are your team is as frustrated as you.
When you hold onto things that could be handled by someone else, you become a bottleneck. Your team stays dependent on you for things they could effectively handle, and you stay stuck in the weeds.
Delegating well multiplies everyone’s capacity and unleashes fresh thinking.
- “They won’t do it as well as I do. Then I’ll still have to get involved to fix it.”
You may not like this, but that’s on you. If she can’t get it right, how good of a job did you do in transferring the knowledge? Did you select the right person to delegate this particular task to?
Also worth considering: Humans learn and grow from mistakes. You weren’t always an expert at that task. Let your people learn!
Leadership isn’t about everything being done exactly as you would into perpetuity. It’s about developing others to see the bigger picture, think critically, problem-solve, and even bring new perspectives to the table.
How Delegating Helps You Win
If you need a little more convincing, here are three specific “wins” for leaders who delegate well:
1. Your delegatees feel empowered and valued.
When you delegate you are demonstrating trust in that team member and building their confidence to do more.
2. Your delegatees take greater ownership for results and build higher-level skills that they and your organization will need for the future.
3. You create space for yourself to focus on things only you can (and want) to do.
Moving appropriate items off your plate gives you time. Our most precious commodity… Now maybe you can work on things like strategic planning, cross-functional collaborations, and deepening your own leadership skills. 🤯
We all love leadership wins, but there is also one major loss to consider for those who don’t delegate effectively: Leaders who don’t end up undermining their own credibility.
Instead of being seen as visionary and strategic, you’re seen as limited in your abilities. When you’re constantly buried in minutiae, others tend to perceive you’ve either got an incompetent team, which doesn’t fare well for your discernment, or you may not have what it takes to be more than a task manager.
If you’re ready to grow your people and give yourself the advantage of more capacity, there are a few things you’ve got to get right if you want to set yourself and your delegatees up for success.
How to Delegate Effectively
1. Start with knowing and applying the reality that, for leaders, effective delegation doesn’t mean handing-off and hoping for the best. It requires thought, planning, and great communication.
- Thought about who is the best person to delegate this to.
- Planning around what information, training, and/or accesses will be needed for success.
- Great communication to assure mutual understanding and agreement of what is included, importance, success measures, when to get advice or feedback, who else needs to be involved, critical parameters, and what the delegated authority is in totality.
If your delegatee can’t explain their full understanding, you haven’t communicated clearly enough. This is a discussion, not an email. Delegation has a much higher chance at complete success when everyone is aligned from the start.
2. Let go of the need to control and give accountability to your delegatee.
Harvard Business Review agrees: Delegate outcomes, not just tasks. Checkpoints are good, important even, at the beginning! But if you drip information and require your delegatee to come back to for more every step of the way, or redo/ take things back when they aren’t exactly what you would do, you are reinforcing a lack of trust. You are also keeping your team dependent on you; while demonstrating their development isn’t important and only you can do important work.
Great leaders are the ones smart enough to put the right people in the right positions, keep motivating and growing them, and be their biggest champion through all their successes. They know without a doubt: the success of their team members is a direct reflection of their leadership.
If you’re a leader who is already delegating, fantastic! Look for more opportunities to use delegation as a way to develop your high potentials. If you’re not, but your interest is piqued, I encourage you to find one thing this week you can delegate well.
If you or a member of your leadership team could benefit from coaching on topics just like this, reach out today and let’s talk about how PERSPECTIVES can help.