How Great Leaders Delegate

One Tip To Get More Out of Your Delegation

If you want something done well, do it yourself. you have to learn to work through others. In leadership, learning to delegate is surprisingly difficult. After all, many of us became leaders because we were great individual contributors. We were excellent at getting the job done ourselves. But to do things well at scale, we have to learn to empower others. We have to work with and through our teams. Great leaders, however, don't look at delegating as telling others what to do. They view delegation as a tool to elevate those around.

Great Leaders Delegate to Develop

Many leaders view delegation as a way to get more work done. And while that is an outcome of delegation, it can be so much more than that. Delegation can and should also be a tool to develop those around you. When great leaders choose to delegate a task, they pick a task that will be a stretch for the person completing it. A task that, when done, will be something that the person learned from.

As Covid-19 restrictions relaxed and people began to return to work, many companies had to find new ways to operate and serve their customers. Social distancing and working virtually were suddenly common considerations that had to be planned for. In one of my roles, a director asked me to design a new work management system for my peer group. My main objective was to help optimize the way work was planned, executed, and monitored for an entire group of regional managers. Although I had demonstrated the ability lead my own teams, I had never been responsible for designing the way others would lead their teams. The task was exciting but daunting. Where would I even start? How would I design a system that other leaders would want to use? How would I measure success and accountability?

While I wasn't conscious of it at the time, the task would require me to acquire and improve several different skills sets. For example, since I was still responsible for my regular duties, I had to figure out a way to manage my time so that my results didn't slip. Additionally, as I was relatively new to this team, I didn't have a lot of influence for my ideas yet. Early on I could sense that not every leader was interested in having the way they work redesigned by a peer. To overcome these challenges, I knew that I would have to find and collaborate with the key influencers on the team. And while I didn't mind working along side others, I had never been particularly strong at initiating collaboration.

And that wasn't all. Throughout the process, it felt like every step required me to exercise a leadership muscle that was not part of my core strengths. As I would later find out, this was all by design.

My director, having worked with me in the past, understood where my strengths and opportunities were. She asked me to help design this work management system not only because she believed I could do it, but also because she knew it would help me strengthen these particular areas of my leadership.

Delegating to develop takes additional thought. It involves understanding the areas in which our team needs improvement and being selective about the projects we decide to delegate. By doing so, we not only accomplish more work but also build more effective teams in the process."