Mastering Delegation in Management: Why It’s So Hard to Let Go
One of the more difficult challenges in management is learning to delegate appropriately, especially when you have a similar skillset to the people you supervise. How many times have we all said that sometimes it is way easier to do something, rather than having to explain that “thing” to someone else. It can be faster, more productive and you can have a better outcome if you take care of the tasks and don’t bother explaining to others how to do it well. It happens with various types of items, ranging from communication to project management to technical tasks.
But we all know that a manager shouldn’t/couldn’t do the work of an entire department. Plus, if you don’t help others understand the way to get things done, you’ll never have a well-rounded staff. Lastly, who says you are the authority of “everything”? Often your way is good, but it isn’t the only way to go. It’s one of the reasons why we often try to hire people with some diverse skills and experience as different sources can equal better outcomes.
Why Managers Struggle to Delegate Tasks
There’s lots of reasons why we don’t delegate – it can be easier, or we don’t think that those on our team have the expertise. Maybe we truly are the expert and can see the best path to completion. Or we don’t have the time – there is a deadline to meet that can’t be moved.
Isn’t it the job of a manager to guide and mentor others without actually doing all of the work of the department? How will you ever have a high-functioning team if you don’t let go a bit? But how/when/why?
Managing Different Strengths Across Your Team
Let’s face it, sometimes you have staff members who aren’t created equal. You may be able to trust employee #1 with all her duties but employee #2 has to be monitored regularly or he’ll cause a dust up with other employees or can make small, but critical mistakes. Sometimes we can spread work around our department and play to our staffs’ strengths and sometimes…not so much.
You could even look at your own strengths and find that your strengths are way different than others on the team. Maybe no one can put together and deliver a key presentation the way that you do. Or perhaps no one on your team has the negotiating skills that you do. Then there could be the difficult internal politics that your team hasn’t quite mastered, sometimes leaving you with more of a mess to clean up.
From Star Performer to Empowering Leader
If any of this sounds familiar, join the club! Often, once you reach the role of manager, it’s because you have an impressive skillset, usually better (in some areas) than those of your team. It is your responsibility to help your team out and build on their fledgling skills. Remember back in the day when your first presentation wasn’t rock solid, or you made mistakes in analyzing data? Maybe you still do but you’re better at recovering.
You are doing the work of a hands-on leader when you guide someone else through experiences that you could take care of with no issue. You NEED others to be solid and you may always be the rock star, but others can learn and maybe even surpass you in some areas. This is good for you, them, your team and the company in general.
I used to work with a peer who was an all-around good performer. He was able to write, design, administer a website, craft a video and in general communicate well. He was in charge of a creative team which isn’t easy, normally filled with egos and agendas. This team was no different. However, instead of mentoring and motivating his team, he cherry picked the assignments as they came in. He took the “fun” stuff, leaving the mundane and low-profile work to the rest of the group. At times he was overwhelmed as he wasn’t very organized so he often took on more than he could handle. But he didn’t ask for help from his team or ask their input. Instead, he tried to soldier on, bitterly complaining to others about his heavy workload. As you can imagine, his employee satisfaction scores were abysmal with most of his internal clients either loving or hating him, depending on whether he was able to prioritize their needs.
This may sound unusual, but it’s not. The even more difficult part of this story is that his boss, a high-ranking leader within the company, didn’t acknowledge any of these problems or seem to work with him to solve them. The team who reported to the creative director was frustrated, bitter and left with no options. Some left the company. Others stopped trying as hard. It was a bad situation.
At the time, I tried to talk with the creative director, but he didn’t see the issue. He thought that it was his team’s fault. They were all jealous, he said. They weren’t a real team he continued to argue and all out for themselves. As an outside perspective, I told him that I didn’t see this as his team’s issue alone. Yes, I said, it isn’t the best solution when everyone is fighting but I said, didn’t he think that was his responsibility as well? He acknowledged that it was but claimed he was “too busy” to work on it. He wanted a team that offered solutions instead of reiterating the problem. No matter how I phrased it to him, he wasn’t talking about his opportunity to fix the problem.
Turning It Around: How to Improve Your Delegation Style
If you see yourself in the creative director example above, don’t worry. This can get fixed. You need to step back and determine your leadership style. Have you been told you don’t delegate? How do the one-on-one meetings go with your staff?
One big part of managing others is guiding them towards improving their strengths, giving them new opportunities, being there when they make a mistake and helping them become better. You’re not the very best at everything but you have a lot to give which is important. Having a strong team who can handle the work of the department is the best way to take on new, more interesting work and enable higher employee satisfaction.