When You Delegate, You're Still In It Together

One of the joys experienced by a new manager is having an array of people to call on to "get it done."

One of the challenges experienced by a new manager is having an array of people to call on to "get it done."

I can't think of a role that's more challenging than managing, at any level. One of the traps, though, is a mistaken sense of what delegation is all about.

What Successful Managers Do

1.Help people perform.

That means you have to spend time focusing on the people who do the task, not just the task.

Who needs help? How much? How much is too much? How often do you need to follow up to see how things are going? When you follow up, what do you really need to do to be helpful? (It may be to get out of the way, explain how to do something in detail, or something in between).

2. Invest in people, not use them.

We agonize over how to invest our earnings so that we reap personal financial growth.

When we delegate are we asking, "How can I invest in this person during this task in order to benefit all of us over the long run?"

Or is the question "What can this person do for me?"

Each question leads to very different outcomes. One is personal and organizational growth. The other is a sense of using and being used.

3. Be alongside, in front of, or close behind--but never absent.

No one--no one--is successful alone. However, it's really easy and unbelievably common to fail by thinking we can do it alone.

So the best managers I know live out a model that clearly shares responsibility. They provide direction and support; their people ask questions easily as a result of the "we're in this together" atmosphere.

What's up in your management/delegating life?

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What happens when new leadership and cultures clash? Wally Bock dissects the clash at Home Depot with simplicity and clarity.

Comments

[Wally Bock]

Great and needed post, Steve. I devote a lot of time to this issue in my Working Supervisor's Support kit because it's important. Some writers have held up delegation as if it were a moral value to delegate, but, in reality, delegation is one end of the spectrum of control you exercise as a boss when you assign work. The other end is complete control and monitoring. Gradations of control and discussion run along the continuum.

Delegation is also task-specific. A team member might be entirely ready to handle one kind of task and not at all ready to handle another. It's a judgment call.

If you delegate to people before they're ready, you're setting them up for failure. Don't delegate to them when they're capable and you communicate that you don't trust them. And, as you point out so well, you're still the boss and you're all in it together, no matter what you do.

[Steve Roesler]

Wally,

Well, it's worth the investment in the Working Supervisor's Support Kit just for that.

As you note, it's a continuum. Most of us probably experience--and even lean toward--either/or types of behavior.

When managers start "getting" the task-specific part of the diagnostic equation, it can prove to be a big boost to everyone concerned.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment.

[Frode H]

One single key word: Empowerment.
To succeed as a leader you need to empower to delegate responsibility. I have been so lucky to succeed with a team of people. The secret is empowerment. We elected 3 persons to be team captains, or team leaders if you need to call it that. These people had responsibility for a team of seven. But not full responsibility, if anything goes wrong, that is my responsibility. But they would be the first line of questions from the employees. We trained them good and they get extra training. So if the employees wonder about any technical or routine question, they go to the team leader first. The team leaders are also an escalation point for difficult requests, so they get more challenging tasks. They are also responsible to keep the happiness and fun rating in the sky range. They sit in on calls listening to the overall performance of the team. They are responsible for motivating the team to win team competitions. All in all they create one happy team and results. They have the power to make decisions on a few important fields. They have the power to create results.

[Steve Roesler]

Frode,

That's a good real-life example of "being in it together." What is very clear is this: everyone knows exactly where to get help when they need it.

This is an excellent model for other managers to follow.

[Wally Bock]

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/06/24/62409-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx

Wally Bock

[Mike Myatt]

Hi Steve:

Great points...Delegation should not be confused with abdication. The trick is to remain engaged in an appropriate fashion after the hand-off in order to maintain continuity without being guilty of micro-managing.