Poor Delegation.

At the party of leadership skills, Delegation is the drably dressed, quiet guy sitting in the corner. Seems boring.

People talk to him when they have to. Just enough to be polite. And because he’s sitting next to the chips. Then off to find someone else more interesting.

However, on their way home, they get this text: “OMG! OMG! OMG!  That nerd guy! He’s a gazillionaire! He makes rockets or creates genes or buys and sells countries or something!”

Turns out Delegation only seems boring.

Actually, it turns out that Delegation is just Very Successful Leadership’s alter ego. His street disguise.

Delegation is what Very Successful Leadership looks like when he puts on glasses and covers up his tights.

Leaders Delegate. Great Leaders are Great Delegators.

Leadership is about a lot of things.

One of those indispensable things is the ability to help other people accomplish a lot. That’s delegation.

In fact, if someone cannot give away vision, goals, tasks, responsibilities, authority, decisions, and resources to other people so more can be accomplished – they cannot lead. They don’t have the basic ability to lead.

Even if they look good in a suit. And are fun to talk to. And have a fancy title.

There is a direct correlation between someone’s ability to effectively lead more (more people, bigger budgets, greater complexity, numbers of projects, etc.) and their ability to delegate.

That works the other way too. Leaders who struggle with just trying to keep up with today’s crisis (forget about trying to build or sustain a vision) are also poor at delegating.

Time Struggles Suggest Delegation Struggles

It is common for my executive and leadership coaching clients to feel busy, stretched, and overwhelmed.

Too busy to learn to be less busy.

It’s a catch 22. Of their own making.

Time Management is just another way of saying Priority Management. (You can find a great, free resource to help you manage your priorities, thus your time, here.)

Great leaders place a priority on discovering ways to give away work. To give away responsibility.

Basically, they are great at getting other people to do things.

The degree to which your priority is on helping others be successful at doing things as opposed to you doing things – is the degree to which you are actually leading.

This is a primary role and responsibility of a leader. The artful mastery of the skill of delegation.

The more influence, people, and resources that someone leads – the more they need to rely on the skill of delegating to be successful.

Leaders who don’t or won’t delegate, limit the growth of others. They limit the growth of their teams or organizations. They limit overall growth to their individual capacity as opposed to the collective capacity.

Delegation Requires a Mindset Shift (Do this, not that!)

Leaders who are really able to get the best out of a team think in terms of leverage, building trust, accepting imperfection and serving others by preparing for them to succeed.

To make up a statistic: At least 80% of a leader’s time should be spent on activities such as:

• Vision building
• Creating focus
• Identifying priorities
• Gathering and distributing resources
• Coaching, encouraging, and appreciating
• Challenging and generating accountability

Perhaps as much as 20% of their time might be spent on doing.

The reality is that many people in positions of leadership spend most of their time doing. Not leading.

They get stressed at the idea of actually doing the work of leadership. They believe they need to hold onto the doing and then add leading on top of it.

But that isn’t it.

Delegation (aka leadership) is largely about letting go.

To grow, to be successful, to expand, to lead – you must get great at knowing how to let go.

How to Prepare to Delegate Naturally, Easily and Effectively

But first – an analogy:

I used to work in construction. I grew up around contractors and know many contractors.

Small contractors will often do the work themselves and then hire someone to be a “gopher.” You know, “Go fer this hammer,” “Go fer that sheetrock.” That’s a small form of delegation that never rises above assigning tasks.

They usually don’t know what work needs to be done until the day of. Or minute of.

They have small companies. Usually just 1 or 2 employees.

Large contractors will never do the work themselves. Instead, they hire other sub-contractors. Who hire their own workers. The large contractors give them plans. They tell them the outcomes and then let them do it. This is a larger form of delegation.

They know what they wanted far in advance of starting the project. When they make a change, they plan the change.

They have as many employees and jobs going on as they can win and successfully delegate to.

Here’s what you need to do:

Adjust Priorities: As mentioned above, you need to shift your priorities from getting stuff done to empowering individuals and teams to get stuff done.

Without this priority shift, you’ll always work against yourself.

Adjust How You Spend Your Time: This is easier once your priorities are adjusted. Make sure your calendar reflects your new priorities.

You should have regular periods of time, pre-blocked in your calendar that you set aside for Planning, communicating, coaching and creating accountability.

You can’t lead/delegate well by squeezing the work of leadership/delegation into whatever leftover time you have.

Creating The Same Sheet Of Music: Learn to plan for the purpose of communicating.

Planning is valuable for many reasons. However, one of the key reasons is that many leaders are either too in their heads and assume everyone knows what they want or they haven’t taken the time to figure out what they want and are figuring it out as they go.

Either way, it leaves everyone standing around waiting for you.

Get the plans out of your head and out someplace where others can see them. It’s like taking the time to develop blueprints.

Then you and everyone else can figure out how they fit into the plan, what they can carry, what resources are needed, etc.

If you don’t know the plans, take time to figure them out.

I know this is tough for some leaders. But it is an important discipline if you want growth and if you truly want to empower others.

This is often why having planning sessions with your team or working with a coach or consultant can be very helpful – to draw the plans out.

Either way, the more everyone has a shared sense of the vision, a shared understanding of the goals and a clear sense of the part they play in getting it done, the easier it will be to delegate.

How to Use Planning

Any planning process you have or start using – should automatically lead to delegation. Any good planning process should result in:

• Describe key goals.
• Clarifying team or individual roles and responsibilities as they relate to the plan.
• Understanding the resources that are needed for success and when they are needed.
• Establishing time frames – when projects need to be completed and when they should be started.
• Identify indicators of success.

What Individuals Need To Be Successfully Delegated To

I’ve written at length about this elsewhere. But individuals need three things to be successful when you delegate to them.

• Clear Expectations: They need clarity on what is wanted, by when and what success looks like. This is where the planning (above) is so helpful.
• Sufficient Skills: They need to have the basic skills to be successful.
• Authority/Resources: They need to have sufficient decision-making authority and access to resources to be successful. (You can forecast this easier with good planning.)

If they have Clear Expectations & Authority/Resources but don’t have Sufficient Skills = They’ll be ineffective.

If they have Clear Expectations & Skills but don’t have Authority/Resources = They’ll be frustrated (and probably unsuccessful.)

If they have Authority/Resources & Skills but don’t have Clear Expectations = They’ll be misdirected in their efforts.

It is up to you, the leader, to ensure that your people and teams are given Clear Expectations, Sufficient Skills and supplied with enough Authority & Resources to be successful.

What is your next step towards becoming a better Delegator / Leader?

Take good care,

Christian

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